Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 15

2011-07-03T21:52:46Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 323==
'''"pasture... meadows"''' 
Traditionally [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland Vinland] was translated as "wine-land", then in more recent times as "pasture-, meadow-land". This kinda seems like a "booyah" moment in the novel, as the first visions/possible version of the family reunion (see pages 232 & 246) have to do with an "impossible hillside" and a "wineland", whereas now when we begin the reality version, it is actually a "pasture-, meadow-land".

'''"Soon toasters and toaster ovens, wood fires, RV kitchen microwaves--just-made coffee"'''" 
This bit, as well as the bar-b-queing later in the chapter, is a signature Pynchon passage; in spite of all the chaos and conflict in whichever book, humanity is anchored by big, communal feeds. See the infamous Banana Breakfast in "Gravity's Rainbow", the State Picnic (p. 1047) in "Against the Day." It's a great opportunity for Pynchon to make his lists, and while some critics have complained that his characters lack humanity, these picnics/parties are usually so evocative and warm it extends to and encompasses the individuals involved.

'''"branching invisible fractals of smell"'''[[Image:Fractal.png|thumb|Julia Set, a Fractal|right]] 
The fractal is a fairly recent (and fashionable) mathematical concept. The property that makes a thing fractal is that it looks the same at any scale -- self-similarity over scale. For this to be true, the fractal object must be made of pieces that look like tiny versions of the whole, and these pieces must be made of similar looking, littler pieces...on to infinity. (The notion of "complications that might go on forever," [[#Page 381|p. 381]], is very Pynchonesque.) Computer graphics programs based on this principle can create complexities that increase as long as you care to wait. Pynchon's use of "fractal" here draws a great word-picture of crinkly, cartoon-like aroma waves tickling noses of all sizes. He's obviously been keeping up with his reading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Wikipedia on Fractals...]

'''"Los Sombras"''' 
Spanish for "the shadows." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_shadows The Shadows] were an early-60s/pre-FabFour British instrumental quartet who were also the backing group for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Richard Cliff Richard]. They are apparently still working to this day.

==Page 324==
'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights] card game.

'''"...portable TV sets bootlegged onto the cable..."''' 
Even the leftist/purist Traverse/Beckers are addicted to the Tube. Maybe that's how come they let Vond and his fascists take over.

==Page 325==
'''"Tokkata & Fuji"''' 
A pun on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_D_minor%2C_BWV_565 Toccata and Fugue]. Toccata (from Italian toccare, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument or plucked string instrument featuring sections of virtuosic passagework, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. A fugue is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of parts, normally referred to as "voices", irrespective of whether the work is vocal or instrumental.

'''"Bach's 'Wachet Auf'... one of the best tunes ever to come out of Europe"''' 
It's Resurrection Day! And weirdly enough, this does wake up the Thanatoids. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachet_auf'' Wachet Auf''] (German: "Sleepers Awake") is a cantata written in 1731 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach Johann Sebastian Bach].

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Ten_Virgins associated Biblical text] refers not to Resurrection Day, but to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming_of_Christ Second Coming of Christ], i.e. the day of reckoning or Last Judgement. This is the final chapter of ''Vineland''.

'''"What was a Thanatoid, at the end of the long dread day, but memory?"''' 
The answer at last. Sort of.

Possibly trapped in the memories of what "could have been"?

'''"timing adapted to the rigors of a disco percussion track"''' 
Listen to a cheesy electronic rendition of "Wachet Auf" on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNi7Rj0WnQ YouTube].

'''"able to make the bluest Thanatoid believe, however briefly, in resurrection, they woke, the Thanatoids woke"''' 

It seems that this is where the "possibility of the future" and "memory" collide into reality, which brings Weed's death as the focal point? Is it now that Weed (once one of their own) and his death has atoned the Thanatoids? Now that the "real" reunion has begun in real space-time? See pgs 246 & 232-233. What if we see Rex and Weed's dialogue on 232-233 as some celluloid, Tubal alternate version of what "could have happened"? Possibly a dream that Prairie had after hearing the facts and seeing the 24fps films? A dream that somehow these "sleepers" had access to???? But once the dream is "over" (reality happens) they can awake? My mind just exploded.

'''"the peculiar band between 6200 and 7000 KHZ"''' 
Why peculiar? The FCC has designated the frequencies 6200-7000 KHz for "various fixed and mobile services; maritime and aeronautical." Pirate radio (unlicensed broadcasting of FM radio, AM radio, or shortwave signals over a significant coverage area that could be picked up by listeners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio]) broadcasts between the shortwave frequencies of 6300 and 7000 KHZ. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_North_America Wikipedia]:
:In the USA pirate radio is frequently, but not always associated with anarchism which considers governmental spectrum regulatory schemes as favoring the interests of large corporations. Therefore, some anarchists consider pirate radio transmissions to be a challenge to that authority.

'''"false cities of gold"''' 
Pynchon playfully compares these mythical malls to the seven cities of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quivira_and_Cíbola Cibola], which kept [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1squez_de_Coronado Coronado] on the run so long.

==Page 326==
'''"The Noir Center Mall"''' 
The shops are puns on famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir film noir] titles: "Bubble Indemnity" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity_(film) ''Double Indemnity'']; "Lounge Good Buy" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Goodbye_(film) ''The Long Goodbye'']; "Mall Tease Flacon" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(1941_film) ''The Maltese Falcon'']; "The Lady 'n' the Lox" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_in_the_lake ''Lady In the Lake''].

[[Image:BradburyBuilding.jpg|thumb|Inside the Bradbury Building|right]]'''"Bradbury Building"''' 
In addition to film noir, the famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_building Bradbury Building] appears in the cyberpunk film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner ''Blade Runner''] and is mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_752 ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. Built in 1893, the building, which contains a central courtyard with skylight, indeed resembles a shopping mall, although it's actually still an office building.

==Page 327==
'''"Che, you're rilly evil"''' 
The relationship between Prairie and Che echoes that of Frenesi and DL.

'''"Brent Musberger"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger] (b. 1939) (the name is misspelled in ''Vineland'') is a TV sportscaster, most famous throughout the 1970s and '80s as the face and voice of CBS Sports. His signature phrase was "YOU are looking LIVE!!! at...(insert city or venue name here)" This was always delivered with maximum enthusiasm, no matter the event. When CBS let him go it created something of a media splash; he quickly resurfaced at ABC. He relates to the next line, and Pynchon's theme about people who are observers rather than makers of reality.

==Page 328==
'''"Maybellene"''' 
What's the joke here? Maybelline eye makeup? Or the chase element in [http://www.chuckberry.com/ Chuck Berry's] song? Probably all of the above, plus a Pynchonian takeoff on Muzak (the "oboe-and-string rendition.") Although a good rockin' tune, Berry's "Maybellene" doesn't have much of a melody, so the idea of an instrumental version, particularly for oboe and strings, seems absurd. See also "New Age mindbarf" on [[#Page 330|p. 330]]. [ [http://www.chuckberry.com/music/lyrics/maybellene.htm Lyrics to ''Maybellene''...] ]

==Page 329==
'''"agoramania"''' 
shopping frenzy.

From what I can find, it means a mania or craving for public/open spaces.

'''"Dwayna"''' 
Another cool name.

==Page 330==
'''"New Age mindbarf"''' 
Pynchon's opinion of the New Age Movement which trended toward the spiritual, the organic and the Politically Correct, and spawned mostly trite philosophies and trite music.

==Page 332==
'''"It's like they's programmed for it or somethin'"''' 
Fleur's comment on why gentlemen prefer black and red underwear on "bad girls" is reminiscent of Pirate Prentiss' involuntary, ejaculatory response to a certain photo, delivered to him via V2, in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

'''"Night and Blood"''' 
Echoes of Katje and Pudding in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236#Page_232 ''Gravity's Rainbow'' - p.232-233]: "She waits for him...white body and black uniform-of-the-night.... Lipstick...prevails like blood.... She is naked now, except for a long sable cape and black boots with court heels. Her only jewelry is a silver ring with an artificial ruby...an arrogant gout of blood..."

==Page 333==
'''"Inpo mode"''' 
Inpo is the Ninjitsu Art of Hiding.

'''"Juvenile Hall badasses"''' 
More badasses.

'''"conical black heaps smoked, glowed, flared here and there into visible fire"''' 
The scene in which Vond burns the 24fps footage is quite horrible -- and extremely important. By destroying 24fps' records of the Sixties, he clears the way for his rewritten fascist version. With no evidence to prove him wrong, who would dare to argue with "official" history?

==Page 334==
'''"a restored Vicky"''' 
Victorian house. The San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding areas has many Victorian-era homes.

'''"not only dropping but also picking up, dribbling and scoring three-pointers..."''' 
Total basketball metaphor for Hector's name dropping.

==Page 337==
'''"Miraculous Medal"''' 
The Miraculous Medal makes an appearance in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#miraculous-medal ''Gravity's Rainbow''] and in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Miraculous_Medal ''V.'']

'''"Ernie Triggerman, and his partner, Sid Liftoff"''' 
More cool names.

These are probably a parody of James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff, founders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_International_Pictures American International Pictures], which produced teen-oriented low-budget movies throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's.

'''"bizcochos"''' 
Spanish for "biscuits, cookies."

'''"lizard-skin etui"''' 
Etui = a four letter word made of odd letters, therefore useful to crossword constructors, and meaning "small case." Pynchon does crossword puzzles? Maybe he just loves words.

==Page 338==
'''"arranged for Sid to work off the beef...[by making] an antidrug movie..."''' 
This plea-bargain echoes a real deal cut by ''Godfather'' producer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Evans_%28film_producer%29 Robert Evans] to avoid doing hard time on a cocaine bust. Evans made several anti-drug spots for TV, as promised, but apparently (according to subsequent courtroom testimony) he kept on using the stuff anyway.

'''"Roy Ibble"''' 
Yet another cool name.

==Page 339==
'''"sudden monster surge of toilet flushing...and...cold air"''' 
A new Pynchonian fable: Dope paranoia results in Hollywood fog bank.

'''"when he saw the screen go blank... 'From now on, I'm watching you.'"''' 
This section - which carries over to pg. 340 - screams of Big Brother and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four George Orwell's ''1984''], which we are again reminded in this section, is the current year in the novel. Cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|page 353]]

==Page 340==
'''"Larry Talbot"''' 
[http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002574/ Lawrence Talbot], played by Lon Chaney Jr., was the cursed man who changed into the Wolfman in the Universal Studios Wolfman films of the 1940s.

'''"childhood religion... Soto Zen"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soto_Zen Soto Zen] is one of two major Zen Buddhist traditions in Japan. It emphasizes daily practice of meditative "wall-gazing".

==Page 341==

'''"but the warmer temperature brings out more of the flavor, don't you think."''' 

Pretty funny since Bud Light is like one of the most unflavorful beers of all time. Yes, a lot of complex beers (esp. darker beers, Belgian beers, etc.) are better enjoyed at warmer temps, but definitely not Bud Light!

==Page 342==
'''"Sounds real natural to me."''' 
A math joke. 2.71828 is "e," the root of the series of "natural" logarithms.

'''"43'd"''' 
half of 86'd. (See "octogenarihexation" on [[Chapter 9#Page 186|p. 186]].) Being 43'd is like being a little pregnant.

==Page 343==
'''Song: "Es Posible."''' 
Music-biz schtick at the end makes it even funnier. Also hilarious: the pre-Castro Cuban theme park, Holiday For Fascists.

==Page 344==
'''"board fading"''' 
fading slowly and smoothly, as if via a volume slider on a recording studio control board.

==Page 345==
'''"Tubal fantasies...pushing their propaganda message that cops-are-only-human...turning agents of government repression into sympathetic heroes. Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore, no more than the routine violations of constitutional rights...now absorbed into...American expectations."''' 
Good points, all, but isn't it a bit out of character for Frenesi the Betrayer, the biggest cop lover in the novel, to be fronting these thoughts for Pynchon? What's happening here, we think, is that Pynchon is starting to set up Frenesi for her rehabilitation as part of the big Happy Ending.

==Page 346==
'''"the Meese Police"''' 
Reagan's DOJ (Department of Justice) head, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese Edwin Meese].

==Page 347==
'''"Mad Dog Vond"''' 
Echoes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Bogart Humphrey Bogart] as Mad Dog Roy Earle in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sierra_%28film%29 ''High Sierra'']. But Vond really is crazy.

'''"Since '81, kids were coming in all on their own askin about careers..."''' 
Too true, too sad, and it undercuts the Happy Ending rather seriously (at least as a pointer to the real world.)

==Page 348==
'''"in the movie of his life story"''' 
A not-quite-made-up film.

==Page 349==
'''Vond is "waitin' for somethin'."''' 
OK, but what? Reluctantly we must point out that none of Pynchon's many explanations bear close examination. (See footnote to the plot synopsis, Chapter 4.)

Cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|page 353]] for a possible explanation of what Vond is waiting for.

==Page 350==
'''"Perez Prado"''' 
Cuban bandleader, "King of the Mambo."

'''"the pink slip to his heart"''' 
A pink slip is a title of ownership for a car. Before the days of automobile titles, the portion of a California car registration that conveyed ownership was colored pink. Hence the brag in the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" about "I got the pink slip, daddy!" (meaning, "I'm holding the paperwork required to stake the LDC on a streetlight drag race, so whatchu waitin' for, dude?")

==Page 351==
'''"Pretend there's a frame around [your parents], pretend they're a show you're watching..."''' 
Once again, TV is America's common reference point.

'''"'Uh-oh,' said Frenesi."''' 
Frenesi refuses to cross the airport picket line. This is a bit on the too-little-too-late side for a professional class-traitor, but it's also quite believable.

==Page 352==
[[Image:ThreeStooges.jpg|thumb|The Three Stooges|right]]'''"the bowl haircut, etc."''' 
Another reference to The Three Stooges ... Moe's bowl haircut. Cf. [[Chapter_9#Page_149|page 149]]

'''"all 'em deeply personal li'l ones and zeros got changed to somebody else's"''' 
Roy Ibble, Flash's former handler, explains the computer file deletions, and carries on Pynchon's binary metaphor.

==Page 353==
'''"Please, no more..."''' 
Ibble crumbles in the face of Flash's anger. This is the only the first in a series of auspicious (but highly improbable) turns of the plot. The Hollywood Happy Ending is beginning.

'''"REX-84"''' 
Short for Reagan's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84 Readiness Exercise 1984], a plan by the United States federal government to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency.

Applying "paranoid logic" to the information in the above-mentioned Wikipedia article, let us suppose that Oliver North, one of the designers of the REX 84 readiness exercise, intended that it be used, exercise in name only, in conjunction with a US invasion of Nicaragua to oust the Sandinista government, which he opposed in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra Iran-Contra Affair]. This corresponds with DL's prediction on page 264-265 and Hector's intuition on page 339-340. Furthermore, let's pretend that REX 84 takes place at the time described in the novel, late summer of 1984, instead of the spring of 1984, as Wikipedia states. This will go a long way in explaining some of the action in the 1984 parts of the novel.

==Page 354==
'''"...Midol America..."''' 
Another low Pynchon pun ("middle-America") referring to the popular brand of menstrual medicine.

'''"...the destined losers whose only redemption would have to come through their usefulness to the State law-enforcement apparatus, which was calling itself 'America,' though somebody must have known better."''' 
This describes Frenesi and Flash, though it could also describe the larger preterite population of the novel. "...law enforcement apparatus...calling itself America..." underscores Pynchon's cold fury at the process via which Frenesi/America falls for the lies of the fascists.

==Page 355==
'''"Triglyph Productions"''' 
Triglyph = three (you-name-em) letters, like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.

'''"Panaflex"'''[[Image:Panaflex.jpg|thumb|Panaflex 35mm Movie Camera|right]] 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panaflex Panaflex] was an innovative 35mm studio camera, made by Panavision, Inc. It's the world standard, used for everything from wide-screen epics to deodorant commercials. It makes a nice contrast with all the "underground" Arris and Auricons.

'''"The Bryant Gumbel Story"''' 
TV personality of the same generation as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger]. Gumbel began as a sportscaster, then became a "Today Show" host, and is now doing sports on HBO.

==Page 356==
'''"...one slip of the tongue..."''' 
Arguably the worst joke in any of Pynchon's novels. Gross!

'''"How to get an Italian Woman Pregnant."''' 
Three versions of this joke:

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' And they say the Italians are stupid!

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' Fuck her.

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' Come in her shoes and the flies will do the rest!

==Page 358==
'''"Starting with a small used trailer..."''' 
This brief flashback telling the story of Zoyd's house includes a typically Pynchon-esque fable about "prehistoric" (and mythical) 5/8-inch plumbing fittings.

'''"full scale kvetchathon"''' 
''kvetch'' = Yiddish for complaint. Hence, a kvetchathon is a marathon bitch session among Van Meter's legendarily bickering family.

'''"kit conversions"''' 
The parts required to convert legal, semi-automatic rifles to full (and illegal) automatic operation are often available in kit form. The kits themselves are not illegal, but they become illegal if installed in non-registered weapons.

==Page 359==
'''"Antinomian"''' 
One who holds that moral law is not binding on Christians. Therefore, as mentioned below, "They believe whatever they do, it's cool with Jesus..." Perhaps Antinomianism is the really extreme flavor of preterite and elect doctrine. So extreme, in fact, that in most circles it's a heresy.

'''"Mrs. Grundy"''' 
A character from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Morton_(playwright) Thomas Morton’s] play 'Speed the Plough' (1798). She is the personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety and is mentioned by various authors from Dickens to Joyce.

'''"motocross"''' 
A cycle race over rough terrain, often desert. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motocross Wikipedia]

'''"May your life be full of lawyers"''' 
Supposedly, the "heavy-dutiest" Mexican curse.

==Page 360==
'''Zoyd's lawyer's voice "suggested Saturday morning more than prime time"''' 
That is, it reminded one of a cartoon character. Lessee, would it be a Smurf or a chipmunk?

'''"What about 'innocent until proven guilty'?" "That was another planet, think they used to call it America, long time ago, before the gutting of the Fourth Amendment. You were automatically guilty the minute they found that marijuana growing on your land."''' 
Pynchon is obviously deeply pissed by this shit (as well he might be); it makes a powerful point in his argument that Big Brother and the Fascists have won. "Another planet" echoes the allegorical conversation between Zoyd and Vond on p. 300.

'''"Y-You mean...life isn't Vegas?"''' 
A very funny line, though (in context) rather ominous as well.

==Page 361==
'''"Musso and Frank's"''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musso_%26_Frank_Grill Musso & Frank Grill] is a famous old-time Hollywood restaurant, established in 1919.

'''"the Grand Canyon"''' 
A lot of detail is packed into a few sentences. Looks like Pynchon has been there, too.

'''"Tex Wiener"''' 
Actor Tex Weiner was on ''General Hospital'' with Sally Kirkland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Hospital ''General Hospital''] is the longest-running ABC Daytime American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network

'''"...fooled once again by the uniform..."''' 
So Frenesi comes by her weakness for sadistic uniformed cops genetically, via Sasha? Or is this something about how opposites need and create each other?

'''"Weww -- it's oow rubbish i'n'i'?"''' 
Well, it's all rubbish, isn't it? Pynchon's fabulous ear again.

==Page 362==
'''"off the scale"''' 
Techno rap, meaning too great to measure, pins the meter, etc.

'''"Naugahyde"''' 
An artificial material designed to resemble leather, made from fabric coated with rubber or vinyl resin.

'''"red-and-gold-flocked"''' 
Flocking is powdered wool or cloth sprinkled onto material (here, wallpaper) producing a raised pattern.

'''"Did they scream?"''' 
A cheap, if effective, trick: Pynchon switches POV (narrators) in mid-scene, giving the tale to producer Sid, and twists the knife by making him playfully reluctant to part with details, so Zuniga has to beg.

'''"Too bad we can't use it."''' 
Christ! Have we been watching Zuniga's damn movie all this time? Directed by Frenesi???

'''"Kissing a young pale melon, under a golden pregnant lollapalooza of a moon."''' 
Sasha's dream is sweet and surreal, but it seems insufficiently motivated. Would she really forgive Frenesi so easily?

==Page 363==
'''"Holocaust Pixels.'''" 
Cool name for a rock band -- and another TV reference. ([[Chapter 12#Page_226|See note, p. 226.]])

Song: "Like a Meat Loaf." 
Great song! Also the Return of the Thanatoid Lunch Meat. Also an echo of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

'''The Thanatoids are "acting rowdier than DL or Takeshi had ever seen them."''' 
The only reverberation of the big flap that sent the karmic adjustment duo racing off for Shade Creek in the last episode. The Happy Ending rolls on.

==Page 364==
'''"...just a couple o' clicks..."''' 
Clicks = kilometers.

'''"Bardo"''' 
Bardo is the after-death realm in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_book_of_the_dead ''Tibetan Book of the Dead'']. The trick is to avoid rebirth, but most people fuck up and let themselves be trapped in a new life. Weed tells of looking for a just-fertilized egg in which to be reborn, "seeking out men and women in the act of sex...in a...smoke-tarnished district of sex shows and porno theaters." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Brothers The Mitchell Brothers] atmosphere is cute. In Tibet a lama keeps whispering the instructions in your dead ear so you don't make these little boo-boos ("couldn't find 'em, time ran out"). Pynchon implies that it's those with "too much still on [their minds]," i.e., unfinished business, that can't quite get permanently dead.

==Page 365==
'''"But what if I am the payback? If your account is zeroed out at last?"''' 
Weed's response to Prairie's offer is a little inconclusive, but note the zero.

'''"Thanatoids dream, though not always when we think we do--"''' 
Weed's dream is extremely powerful and the image is quite writerly. Is the coroner he's looking for "to reveal to the world at last my murder, my murderers" really Pynchon? Are the "companions" who keep trying to find this coroner the readers of Vineland? Faithful hippies? Those who refuse to buy the rewritten version of the Sixties? All of the above? Prairie says it's DL & Takeshi, Weed thinks maybe it's his parents. It might even be the Pisk sisters.

==Page 366==
'''"It was all for love... It was political... A rebel cop... The orders of a repressive regime..."''' 
Pynchon seems aware that his readers (the "companions") may be confused.

'''"Sometimes I think it could be my parents"''' 
Recall ([[Chapter_11#Page_206|page 206 notes]]) that Weed is based partly on Pynchon himself. ''Vineland's'' dedication is "For my mother and father". So this passage could be Pynchon speaking of or to his own parents.

'''"higher justice"''' 
God, karma, Karmic Adjusters, or Emersonism (cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_369|page 369]]), as opposed to the Department of Justice.

'''Prairie and Weed "soon to become an item"''' 
This is the real happy ending, suggesting that young kids may seek out the truth about the Sixties. (And not just the clothes!)

'''"Prairie would show him secrets of pachinko..."''' 
But how did she learn them? From DL? Pachinko is a Japanese gaming device used for amusement and prizes and is related to pinball machines. Although originally strictly mechanical, modern pachinko machines are a cross between a pinball machine and a video slot machine. Cf. [[Chapter_8#Page_122|page 122]].

==Page 367==
'''"the Traverse-Becker wingding"''' 
Nice image, suggesting the continuity of the Left although making it a picnic is surely some dark irony. (At least it's not a dinner party.)

'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
again, players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights].

'''"the Mother situation"''' 
Nice cinematic touch, superimposing Frenesi and the Mother of Doom (the Queen of Spades).

'''"with Sasha was a woman about forty, who had been a girl in a movie..."''' 
The reunion of Prairie and Frenesi, which has motivated Prairie, and haunted Frenesi, throughout most of the book, is tossed off distressingly quickly, but with at least this one great line.

'''"Commere lemme check those dimples, yes there, they are..."''' 
Sasha's agonizing grandma act is way out of character. We hope! Still, "it's her way of trying to help" ([[#Page 368|p. 368]]).

==Page 368==
You'd think Pynchon would devote a little more ink to the reunion of Frenesi and Prairie, but in fact Frenesi seems to be in the process of fading out here (much as Vond will do in a few pages).

==Page 369==
'''"pasta dishes and grilled tofu contributed by younger elements"''' 
Hello, Becker/Traverse yuppies!

'''"Secret retributions are always restoring the level..."''' 
This marvelous quote from Emerson is deeply optimistic, and goes a long way toward buying off the Happy Ending. Contrasts nicely with Lombroso's "misoneism," the negative feedback loop by which society resists change.

It also provides a counter to the Orwellian (in Pynchon's view) Department of Justice that sponsors Brock Vond and CAMP, as well as a counterpoint to the Eastern idea of karma.

'''"Ask Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
The Happy Ending continues, as we learn of Crocker 'Bud' Scantling's karmic payoff under the wheels of a chip truck.

==Page 370==
'''"Lux Unlimited"''' 
A lux is a unit of luminosity equal to 1 candela sterradian per square meter. Drop that into your next bar room argument. 

Lux is Latin for light. "Fiat Lux", or "Let there be light", is the motto of the University of California.

'''"Take care of your dead, or they'll take care of you."''' 
Confirmation of what the Thanatoids really are ([[#Page 325|see p. 325]]). Also a nice restatement of Santayana's famous quote about "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it (or retake the course)."

'''"Say, Jim"''' 
The title of this made-up half-hour sitcom (a black version of ''Star Trek'') is a reference both to Bones' habitual conversational opening to Captain James Kirk, and to Afro-American slang in which "Jim" is an all-purpose (and generally negative, being short for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws "Jim Crow"]) form of address. This is also another digital gag (white becoming black = zero becoming one).

It also reflects the cultural change in mass entertainment that happened between the sixties and the eighties.

'''"Zoyd and Flash went off looking for beer"''' 
Flash surfaces. No point, really, except for the overall reconciliation Pynchon is forcing on the book.

'''"Robert Musil"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Musil Robert Musil] was an Austrian novelist (1880-1942), whose Proustian style was marked by subtle psychological analysis. His works include ''Young Torless'' and ''The Man Without Qualities''.

''Young Torless'' mixes homoerotic sadism with philosophical discussions of imaginary numbers, so it is relevant to ''Against the Day''. ''The Man Without Qualities'' is a thinly disguised portrait of Walter Rathenau, who is invoked several times in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. So Pynchon is poking fun at himself.

==Page 371==
'''"...talking back to the tube..."''' 
The Beckers and Traverses are politically hip, shown by their talking back, and their suspicion that the "prefascist twilight" is really just "the light...coming from millions of Tubes all showing the same bright colored shadows..." TV as the true opiate of the masses -- or, as the NY commies used to say, "de messes."

==Page 372==
Zoyd feels sorry for Flash, the "unfortunate sucker" who's still with Frenesi; he sees "the need behind the desperado lamps" (eyes). Nice phrase, nice rendition of the healing power of time and distance, and a sweet way to take leave of Zoyd, who seems to have found some peaceful place to rest at least for the moment.

==Page 373==
'''"Minute the tube got hold of you folks, that was it..."''' 
The kid (who speaks for Pynchon, of course) is right. It's funny how so few of us saw the future, fought the Tube. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan McLuhan] was right too, but we only thought we knew what he was talking about.

'''"gold-handled chainsaw"''' 
Sheriff Willis Chunko's celebrated anti-pot weapon takes us full circle from/to Zoyd's ladylike purse-sized model in [[Chapter 1|Chapter 1]].

'''"monster Mopars dialed and eager"''' 
Mopar = the parts division of Chrysler Motors = (here) engines. Dialed = souped up. This is at least the second "dialed" reference in Vineland. It's hot-rod talk, and means more or less the same as the now old-fashioned "blue-printed." The dials refer to a machinist's dial indicators, used to bring once-stock engines into more-than-perfect condition and tune.

==Page 374==
'''"speeding after moonset"''' 
Like in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Road ''Thunder Road''] [1958], the great [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mitchum Robert Mitchum] bootlegging thriller.

'''"quaquaversal beard"''' 
"Quaquaversal" is a geological term meaning "turned or pointing in every direction." It's a good description for a wiry beard.

'''"...go find [Vond] and cancel his series for him..."''' 
Another TV referent.

'''"found it easier now to make out...her own...face"''' 
Now that Prairie has met Frenesi she can see her own face more clearly in Zoyd's. That is, she's not Vond's daughter. More Happy Ending.

==Page 375==
'''"...down out of [the helicopter], hooked by harness and cable to the mother ship above, came Brock Vond..."''' Is Vond's deus ex machina appearance to Prairie a dream? It could be; she was asleep. Then again, "Brock, whom his colleagues were calling 'Death From Slightly Above,' had been out [practicing]." And remember the Madwoman In the Attic ([[Chapter 13#Page 274|p. 274]]).

Pynchon tells you it's not a dream: "The beat ... woke her" and on the next page "she came fully awake".

'''"Death From Slightly Above"''' 
"Mors Ab Alto" or "Death from Above" is the motto of the US 7th Strategic Bomber Wing ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Bomb_Wing Wikipedia]). In the late 1960's and early 1970's they were famous for the "carpet bombing" of Vietnam. Brock Vond flies somewhat lower.

'''"Huey slicks"'''[[Image:UH-1.jpg|thumb|UH-1 Huey Slick|right]] 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UH-1_Iroquois UH-1 Iroquois helicopter] was first designated HU-1 (for "Helicopter, Utility" in backwards Army nomenclature) which led to its nickname "Huey". Although Hueys have been used in a wide variety of roles worldwide, they are closely associated with the Vietnam War, where they were heavily employed. The "slick" version of the Huey lacked external weapons pods, and was mainly used for evacuation and troop transport.

'''"more recaps on this subject than Mark C. Bloome"''' 
Bloome was the owner of a chain of popular tire stores in southern California, the Mark C. Bloome Tire Company.

'''"The original plan had been to go in..., come down vertical, grab her, and winch back up and out--"''' 
Why does Vond want to abduct Prairie? Lust? Pure evil? This is never adequately explained. There's a bit of chat in [[Chapter 14]] discussing Vond's interest in Prairie, but it's not developed any further.

==Page 376==
'''"The key is rapture."''' 
Earlier Vond explained the disappearance of the CotS students the same way. ([[Chapter 12#Page 248|See note, p. 248.]]) Also, it is Frenesi's rapture (or "frenzy") over being dominated that enables Vond to have his way with her.

The Rapture occurs along with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming_of_Christ Second Coming of Christ], telegraphed to the Thanatoids on [[Chapter_15#Page_325|page 325]].

'''"Her tits, master--"''' 
Roscoe becomes Dwight Frye, Vampire Vond's Renfield. ("Rats, master, you promised me rats...")

'''Vond glows "unusually white."''' 
More evidence that he's a vampire. (A-and remember, he sleeps with his eyes open!)

Vampires, although deathly pale, don't glow white. They are afraid of light. But ''Angels'' ...

This is Vond's aura of invincibility, as seen on [[Chapter_13#Page_272|page 272]]. He has powered-up his primary weapon.

'''...can't be my father...Preparation H.'''[[Image:PreparationH.jpg|thumb|Preparation H|right]] 
She isn't Frenesi's clone, she has Zoyd's blood in her too. Vond paralyzes her for a second, but she can't be dominated as easily as Frenesi. In the Rapture, only believers are hoisted to heaven. Prairie doesn't believe in Vond's invincibility. And of course, Pynchon breaks the spell with another ass joke.

'''"Some white male far away must have wakened from a dream."''' 
Reagan? Meese? Nixon? The white male God of the Calvinists?

'''"Brock...now being winched back up..."''' 
Film running backward through the projector. The image is great, but there's something troublesome here. If the novel represents the real world (as we must assume it does, or it would be no more than an empty divertissement), what "real" event in 1984 informs Vond's withdrawal and defeat?

Here is a guess. Suppose REX 84 is taken to be a roundup of dissenters prior to a possible invasion of Nicaragua (cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|pg. 353 notes]]). It's late summer 1984 in the novel, so let's guess the Traverse-Becker picnic is always held on Labor Day, falling on September 3 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984 1984]. On September 4, 1984 the Sandinista Front won the Nicaraguan election, considered fair by most international observers. An invasion was no longer possible.

==Page 377==
'''"Asshole, they're all together, one surgical strike..."''' 
Vond is ready to wipe out everyone Frenesi, Flash, Zoyd, Justin, maybe even Prairie just as (presumably) he wiped their computer files earlier.

'''"...[Vond] was gone, following his penis--"''' 
A reprise of the lyrics from "Like a Meat Loaf" ([[Chapter_15#Page 364|p. 364]]): "Well we followed our dicks just a couple o' clicks...")

'''Alexi appears in the clearing, carrying "an old acoustic guitar with Cyrillic stenciling on it, as if he'd been prepared to use it as a weapon."''' 
Like American political folkie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie Woody Guthrie's] guitar, on which the folksinger wrote "This machine kills fascists."

'''"The Movie at Nine"''' 
Pynchon gets into a great male-folksy description of a basketball movie the most developed of any of his synthetic made-for-TV flicks. An elect white team (the Celtics) Vs. a preterite black team (the Lakers). Obviously Pynchon is a Lakers fan. It's a story of great courage, and it sets up Vato and Blood for their "rescue" of the newly Thanatoidized Vond. Vond's car disappears (the way thanatoid vehicles do), and we get a Yurok tale by Vato, implying that by coming to Vineland Brock got too close to the land of the dead (Shade Creek). Maybe that's what woke the Thanatoids up? But by then, V&B Tow is conducting Vond across the River Styxx.

For more on the political/sociological subtext of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakers–Celtics_rivalry#Magic_and_Larry Wikipedia]. The game depicted is probably game 7 of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_NBA_Finals 1984 NBA Finals]. Since the game took place on June 12, Pynchon sticks to ''Vineland's'' themes and its late-summer timeline by including the game as a made-for-TV movie.

Pynchon uses Lakers games to anchor his timeline in [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_Time_and_Narrative_Time_in_Inherent_Vice ''Inherent Vice''].

==Page 378==
'''"Time to lock and load, Blood."''' 
Lock and load = ArmySpeak for "saddle up." Specifically, it means lock on the safety of your firearm and load a live round into the chamber, leaving the weapon armed and ready to fire but safe to carry. (The standard 'Nam response was "Cocked and locked!" meaning "Ready when you are.")

'''"It had been an unusual sort of car..."''' 
Vond's chopper turns into an (underpowered) car, which then disappears itself. Vond's power is fading out and he is too. Cool image, but same problem as above. Did Vond (that is, the totalitarian power freaks he fronts for) fade out in 1984? And if not, isn't it a cheat that he does so in the novel?

==Page 380==
'''"crankless"''' 
That is, without amphetamines.

==Page 381==
'''"...she and Takeshi finally renegotiated the no-sex clause..."''' 
Happy Ending continues. "Whooee!" says DL.

'''"a fractal halo of complications"''' 

Typical Pynchon light-and-color show -- and the second use of the "fractal" buzzword. (It occurs on [[#Page 323|page 323]], as well.) Are neural networks next?

==Page 382==
'''"an inkjet printer moved along the the meridians of his naked skin"''' 
Here, the Puncutron seems like Kafka's torture/execution machine from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_penal_colony ''In the Penal Colony''], but in reverse.

In acupuncture, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine) meridians] are channels in the body through which life-energy flows.

A template for instructing the "teen novices, all in white gi with trainee armbands" in acupuncture was being rendered unto Takeshi's body.

'''"an ivory fescue"''' 
Fescue = a teacher's pointer of high quality.

'''"When the Earth was still a paradise, long, long ago..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's allegory about Hell and Earth may explain a bit about Thanatoids, if you wish to read it that way.

Or perhaps an optimistic view of the end of the Cold War in the Third World, as seen by Pynchon in 1990.

==Page 383==
'''"faceless predators"''' 
This paragraph reads like Pynchon checked his outline, noticed two loose ends (the Kahuna hijack and the monster-stomped laboratory) and tied them up as quickly and crudely as possible. Sloppy work.

'''"despite every Karmic Adjustment resource brought to bear so far"''' 
This provides another motivation for DL & Takeshi's "business" venture.

'''"the night of no white diamonds or even chicken crank"''' 
Chicken crank = the speed Takeshi has been trying to score in the form of chicken feed. There are a number of other references to Takeshi's habitual speed use, not the least of which is his epic journey eastward to the SKA and Puncutron.

'''"the foreign magician and his blond tomato assistant"''' 
Takeshi and DL, of course.

==Page 384==
'''"Russian Johnny B. Goode"''' 
No happy-ending complete without Chuck Berry! Or does he mean "Back In the USSR?" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_B._Goode "Johnny B. Goode"] is a seminal 1958 rock and roll song by Chuck Berry, ranked by ''Rolling Stone'' as the seventh greatest song ever on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/chuck-berry/johnny-b-goode.html Lyrics...] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofD9t_sULM YouTube]

'''"You can come back...take me any place..."''' 
Prairie longs for Vond to come back and abuse her. It must be her genetic predilection for the uniform. Or, perhaps the desire to find out what was heavy enough to make her mom split. It's a bit sick, but maybe Pynchon knows his characters (and the human character) better than we do. ("Every woman adores a fascist / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you." "Daddy," [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_plath Sylvia Plath]) In any case, Pynchon "saves" it by having Desmond return. When it comes to preterite, what can out-pret a girl's dog?

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 15

2011-07-03T21:32:35Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 323==
'''"pasture... meadows"''' 
Traditionally [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland Vinland] was translated as "wine-land", then in more recent times as "pasture-, meadow-land". This kinda seems like a "booyah" moment in the novel, as the first visions/possible version of the family reunion (see pages 232 & 246) have to do with an "impossible hillside" and a "wineland", whereas now when we begin the reality version, it is actually a "pasture-, meadow-land".

'''"Soon toasters and toaster ovens, wood fires, RV kitchen microwaves--just-made coffee"'''" 
This bit, as well as the bar-b-queing later in the chapter, is a signature Pynchon passage; in spite of all the chaos and conflict in whichever book, humanity is anchored by big, communal feeds. See the infamous Banana Breakfast in "Gravity's Rainbow", the State Picnic (p. 1047) in "Against the Day." It's a great opportunity for Pynchon to make his lists, and while some critics have complained that his characters lack humanity, these picnics/parties are usually so evocative and warm it extends to and encompasses the individuals involved.

'''"branching invisible fractals of smell"'''[[Image:Fractal.png|thumb|Julia Set, a Fractal|right]] 
The fractal is a fairly recent (and fashionable) mathematical concept. The property that makes a thing fractal is that it looks the same at any scale -- self-similarity over scale. For this to be true, the fractal object must be made of pieces that look like tiny versions of the whole, and these pieces must be made of similar looking, littler pieces...on to infinity. (The notion of "complications that might go on forever," [[#Page 381|p. 381]], is very Pynchonesque.) Computer graphics programs based on this principle can create complexities that increase as long as you care to wait. Pynchon's use of "fractal" here draws a great word-picture of crinkly, cartoon-like aroma waves tickling noses of all sizes. He's obviously been keeping up with his reading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Wikipedia on Fractals...]

'''"Los Sombras"''' 
Spanish for "the shadows." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_shadows The Shadows] were an early-60s/pre-FabFour British instrumental quartet who were also the backing group for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Richard Cliff Richard]. They are apparently still working to this day.

==Page 324==
'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights] card game.

'''"...portable TV sets bootlegged onto the cable..."''' 
Even the leftist/purist Traverse/Beckers are addicted to the Tube. Maybe that's how come they let Vond and his fascists take over.

==Page 325==
'''"Tokkata & Fuji"''' 
A pun on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_D_minor%2C_BWV_565 Toccata and Fugue]. Toccata (from Italian toccare, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument or plucked string instrument featuring sections of virtuosic passagework, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. A fugue is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of parts, normally referred to as "voices", irrespective of whether the work is vocal or instrumental.

'''"Bach's 'Wachet Auf'... one of the best tunes ever to come out of Europe"''' 
It's Resurrection Day! And weirdly enough, this does wake up the Thanatoids. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachet_auf'' Wachet Auf''] (German: "Sleepers Awake") is a cantata written in 1731 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach Johann Sebastian Bach].

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Ten_Virgins associated Biblical text] refers not to Resurrection Day, but to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming_of_Christ Second Coming of Christ], i.e. the day of reckoning or Last Judgement. This is the final chapter of ''Vineland''.

'''"What was a Thanatoid, at the end of the long dread day, but memory?"''' 
The answer at last. Sort of.

Possibly trapped in the memories of what "could have been"?

'''"timing adapted to the rigors of a disco percussion track"''' 
Listen to a cheesy electronic rendition of "Wachet Auf" on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNi7Rj0WnQ YouTube].

'''"able to make the bluest Thanatoid believe, however briefly, in resurrection, they woke, the Thanatoids woke"''' 

It seems that this is where the "possibility of the future" and "memory" collide into reality, which brings Weed's death as the focal point? Is it now that Weed (once one of their own) and his death has atoned the Thanatoids? Now that the "real" reunion has begun in real space-time? See pgs 246 & 232-233. What if we see Rex and Weed's dialogue on 232-233 as some celluloid, Tubal alternate version of what "could have happened"? Possibly a dream that Prairie had after hearing the facts and seeing the 24fps films? A dream that somehow these "sleepers" had access to???? But once the dream is "over" (reality happens) they can awake? My mind just exploded.

'''"the peculiar band between 6200 and 7000 KHZ"''' 
Why peculiar? The FCC has designated the frequencies 6200-7000 KHz for "various fixed and mobile services; maritime and aeronautical." Pirate radio (unlicensed broadcasting of FM radio, AM radio, or shortwave signals over a significant coverage area that could be picked up by listeners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio]) broadcasts between the shortwave frequencies of 6300 and 7000 KHZ. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_North_America Wikipedia]:
:In the USA pirate radio is frequently, but not always associated with anarchism which considers governmental spectrum regulatory schemes as favoring the interests of large corporations. Therefore, some anarchists consider pirate radio transmissions to be a challenge to that authority.

'''"false cities of gold"''' 
Pynchon playfully compares these mythical malls to the seven cities of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quivira_and_Cíbola Cibola], which kept [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1squez_de_Coronado Coronado] on the run so long.

==Page 326==
'''"The Noir Center Mall"''' 
The shops are puns on famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir film noir] titles: "Bubble Indemnity" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity_(film) ''Double Indemnity'']; "Lounge Good Buy" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Goodbye_(film) ''The Long Goodbye'']; "Mall Tease Flacon" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(1941_film) ''The Maltese Falcon'']; "The Lady 'n' the Lox" = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_in_the_lake ''Lady In the Lake''].

[[Image:BradburyBuilding.jpg|thumb|Inside the Bradbury Building|right]]'''"Bradbury Building"''' 
In addition to film noir, the famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_building Bradbury Building] appears in the cyberpunk film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner ''Blade Runner''] and is mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_752 ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. Built in 1893, the building, which contains a central courtyard with skylight, indeed resembles a shopping mall, although it's actually still an office building.

==Page 327==
'''"Che, you're rilly evil"''' 
The relationship between Prairie and Che echoes that of Frenesi and DL.

'''"Brent Musberger"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger] (b. 1939) (the name is misspelled in ''Vineland'') is a TV sportscaster, most famous throughout the 1970s and '80s as the face and voice of CBS Sports. His signature phrase was "YOU are looking LIVE!!! at...(insert city or venue name here)" This was always delivered with maximum enthusiasm, no matter the event. When CBS let him go it created something of a media splash; he quickly resurfaced at ABC. He relates to the next line, and Pynchon's theme about people who are observers rather than makers of reality.

==Page 328==
'''"Maybellene"''' 
What's the joke here? Maybelline eye makeup? Or the chase element in [http://www.chuckberry.com/ Chuck Berry's] song? Probably all of the above, plus a Pynchonian takeoff on Muzak (the "oboe-and-string rendition.") Although a good rockin' tune, Berry's "Maybellene" doesn't have much of a melody, so the idea of an instrumental version, particularly for oboe and strings, seems absurd. See also "New Age mindbarf" on [[#Page 330|p. 330]]. [ [http://www.chuckberry.com/music/lyrics/maybellene.htm Lyrics to ''Maybellene''...] ]

==Page 329==
'''"agoramania"''' 
shopping frenzy.

From what I can find, it means a mania or craving for public/open spaces.

'''"Dwayna"''' 
Another cool name.

==Page 330==
'''"New Age mindbarf"''' 
Pynchon's opinion of the New Age Movement which trended toward the spiritual, the organic and the Politically Correct, and spawned mostly trite philosophies and trite music.

==Page 332==
'''"It's like they's programmed for it or somethin'"''' 
Fleur's comment on why gentlemen prefer black and red underwear on "bad girls" is reminiscent of Pirate Prentiss' involuntary, ejaculatory response to a certain photo, delivered to him via V2, in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

'''"Night and Blood"''' 
Echoes of Katje and Pudding in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236#Page_232 ''Gravity's Rainbow'' - p.232-233]: "She waits for him...white body and black uniform-of-the-night.... Lipstick...prevails like blood.... She is naked now, except for a long sable cape and black boots with court heels. Her only jewelry is a silver ring with an artificial ruby...an arrogant gout of blood..."

==Page 333==
'''"Inpo mode"''' 
Inpo is the Ninjitsu Art of Hiding.

'''"Juvenile Hall badasses"''' 
More badasses.

'''"conical black heaps smoked, glowed, flared here and there into visible fire"''' 
The scene in which Vond burns the 24fps footage is quite horrible -- and extremely important. By destroying 24fps' records of the Sixties, he clears the way for his rewritten fascist version. With no evidence to prove him wrong, who would dare to argue with "official" history?

==Page 334==
'''"a restored Vicky"''' 
Victorian house. The San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding areas has many Victorian-era homes.

'''"not only dropping but also picking up, dribbling and scoring three-pointers..."''' 
Total basketball metaphor for Hector's name dropping.

==Page 337==
'''"Miraculous Medal"''' 
The Miraculous Medal makes an appearance in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#miraculous-medal ''Gravity's Rainbow''] and in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Miraculous_Medal ''V.'']

'''"Ernie Triggerman, and his partner, Sid Liftoff"''' 
More cool names.

These are probably a parody of James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff, founders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_International_Pictures American International Pictures], which produced teen-oriented low-budget movies throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's.

'''"bizcochos"''' 
Spanish for "biscuits, cookies."

'''"lizard-skin etui"''' 
Etui = a four letter word made of odd letters, therefore useful to crossword constructors, and meaning "small case." Pynchon does crossword puzzles? Maybe he just loves words.

==Page 338==
'''"arranged for Sid to work off the beef...[by making] an antidrug movie..."''' 
This plea-bargain echoes a real deal cut by ''Godfather'' producer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Evans_%28film_producer%29 Robert Evans] to avoid doing hard time on a cocaine bust. Evans made several anti-drug spots for TV, as promised, but apparently (according to subsequent courtroom testimony) he kept on using the stuff anyway.

'''"Roy Ibble"''' 
Yet another cool name.

==Page 339==
'''"sudden monster surge of toilet flushing...and...cold air"''' 
A new Pynchonian fable: Dope paranoia results in Hollywood fog bank.

'''"when he saw the screen go blank... 'From now on, I'm watching you.'"''' 
This section - which carries over to pg. 340 - screams of Big Brother and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four George Orwell's ''1984''], which we are again reminded in this section, is the current year in the novel. Cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|page 353]]

==Page 340==
'''"Larry Talbot"''' 
[http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002574/ Lawrence Talbot], played by Lon Chaney Jr., was the cursed man who changed into the Wolfman in the Universal Studios Wolfman films of the 1940s.

'''"childhood religion... Soto Zen"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soto_Zen Soto Zen] is one of two major Zen Buddhist traditions in Japan. It emphasizes daily practice of meditative "wall-gazing".

==Page 341==

'''"but the warmer temperature brings out more of the flavor, don't you think."''' 

Pretty funny since Bud Light is like one of the most unflavorful beers of all time. Yes, a lot of complex beers (esp. darker beers, Belgian beers, etc.) are better enjoyed at warmer temps, but definitely not Bud Light!

==Page 342==
'''"Sounds real natural to me."''' 
A math joke. 2.71828 is "e," the root of the series of "natural" logarithms.

'''"43'd"''' 
half of 86'd. (See "octogenarihexation" on [[Chapter 9#Page 186|p. 186]].) Being 43'd is like being a little pregnant.

==Page 343==
'''Song: "Es Posible."''' 
Music-biz schtick at the end makes it even funnier. Also hilarious: the pre-Castro Cuban theme park, Holiday For Fascists.

==Page 344==
'''"board fading"''' 
fading slowly and smoothly, as if via a volume slider on a recording studio control board.

==Page 345==
'''"Tubal fantasies...pushing their propaganda message that cops-are-only-human...turning agents of government repression into sympathetic heroes. Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore, no more than the routine violations of constitutional rights...now absorbed into...American expectations."''' 
Good points, all, but isn't it a bit out of character for Frenesi the Betrayer, the biggest cop lover in the novel, to be fronting these thoughts for Pynchon? What's happening here, we think, is that Pynchon is starting to set up Frenesi for her rehabilitation as part of the big Happy Ending.

==Page 346==
'''"the Meese Police"''' 
Reagan's DOJ (Department of Justice) head, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese Edwin Meese].

==Page 347==
'''"Mad Dog Vond"''' 
Echoes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Bogart Humphrey Bogart] as Mad Dog Roy Earle in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sierra_%28film%29 ''High Sierra'']. But Vond really is crazy.

'''"Since '81, kids were coming in all on their own askin about careers..."''' 
Too true, too sad, and it undercuts the Happy Ending rather seriously (at least as a pointer to the real world.)

==Page 348==
'''"in the movie of his life story"''' 
A not-quite-made-up film.

==Page 349==
'''Vond is "waitin' for somethin'."''' 
OK, but what? Reluctantly we must point out that none of Pynchon's many explanations bear close examination. (See footnote to the plot synopsis, Chapter 4.)

Cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|page 353]] for a possible explanation of what Vond is waiting for.

==Page 350==
'''"Perez Prado"''' 
Cuban bandleader, "King of the Mambo."

'''"the pink slip to his heart"''' 
A pink slip is a title of ownership for a car. Before the days of automobile titles, the portion of a California car registration that conveyed ownership was colored pink. Hence the brag in the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" about "I got the pink slip, daddy!" (meaning, "I'm holding the paperwork required to stake the LDC on a streetlight drag race, so whatchu waitin' for, dude?")

==Page 351==
'''"Pretend there's a frame around [your parents], pretend they're a show you're watching..."''' 
Once again, TV is America's common reference point.

'''"'Uh-oh,' said Frenesi."''' 
Frenesi refuses to cross the airport picket line. This is a bit on the too-little-too-late side for a professional class-traitor, but it's also quite believable.

==Page 352==
[[Image:ThreeStooges.jpg|thumb|The Three Stooges|right]]'''"the bowl haircut, etc."''' 
Another reference to The Three Stooges ... Moe's bowl haircut. Cf. [[Chapter_9#Page_149|page 149]]

'''"all 'em deeply personal li'l ones and zeros got changed to somebody else's"''' 
Roy Ibble, Flash's former handler, explains the computer file deletions, and carries on Pynchon's binary metaphor.

==Page 353==
'''"Please, no more..."''' 
Ibble crumbles in the face of Flash's anger. This is the only the first in a series of auspicious (but highly improbable) turns of the plot. The Hollywood Happy Ending is beginning.

'''"REX-84"''' 
Short for Reagan's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84 Readiness Exercise 1984], a plan by the United States federal government to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency.

Applying "paranoid logic" to the information in the above-mentioned Wikipedia article, let us suppose that Oliver North, one of the designers of the REX 84 readiness exercise, intended that it be used, exercise in name only, in conjunction with a US invasion of Nicaragua to oust the Sandinista government, which he opposed in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra Iran-Contra Affair]. This corresponds with DL's prediction on page 264-265 and Hector's intuition on page 339-340. Furthermore, let's pretend that REX 84 takes place at the time described in the novel, late summer of 1984, instead of the spring of 1984, as Wikipedia states. This will go a long way in explaining some of the action in the 1984 parts of the novel.

==Page 354==
'''"...Midol America..."''' 
Another low Pynchon pun ("middle-America") referring to the popular brand of menstrual medicine.

'''"...the destined losers whose only redemption would have to come through their usefulness to the State law-enforcement apparatus, which was calling itself 'America,' though somebody must have known better."''' 
This describes Frenesi and Flash, though it could also describe the larger preterite population of the novel. "...law enforcement apparatus...calling itself America..." underscores Pynchon's cold fury at the process via which Frenesi/America falls for the lies of the fascists.

==Page 355==
'''"Triglyph Productions"''' 
Triglyph = three (you-name-em) letters, like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.

'''"Panaflex"'''[[Image:Panaflex.jpg|thumb|Panaflex 35mm Movie Camera|right]] 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panaflex Panaflex] was an innovative 35mm studio camera, made by Panavision, Inc. It's the world standard, used for everything from wide-screen epics to deodorant commercials. It makes a nice contrast with all the "underground" Arris and Auricons.

'''"The Bryant Gumbel Story"''' 
TV personality of the same generation as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger]. Gumbel began as a sportscaster, then became a "Today Show" host, and is now doing sports on HBO.

==Page 356==
'''"...one slip of the tongue..."''' 
Arguably the worst joke in any of Pynchon's novels. Gross!

'''"How to get an Italian Woman Pregnant."''' 
Three versions of this joke:

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' And they say the Italians are stupid!

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' Fuck her.

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' Come in her shoes and the flies will do the rest!

==Page 358==
'''"Starting with a small used trailer..."''' 
This brief flashback telling the story of Zoyd's house includes a typically Pynchon-esque fable about "prehistoric" (and mythical) 5/8-inch plumbing fittings.

'''"full scale kvetchathon"''' 
''kvetch'' = Yiddish for complaint. Hence, a kvetchathon is a marathon bitch session among Van Meter's legendarily bickering family.

'''"kit conversions"''' 
The parts required to convert legal, semi-automatic rifles to full (and illegal) automatic operation are often available in kit form. The kits themselves are not illegal, but they become illegal if installed in non-registered weapons.

==Page 359==
'''"Antinomian"''' 
One who holds that moral law is not binding on Christians. Therefore, as mentioned below, "They believe whatever they do, it's cool with Jesus..." Perhaps Antinomianism is the really extreme flavor of preterite and elect doctrine. So extreme, in fact, that in most circles it's a heresy.

'''"Mrs. Grundy"''' 
A character from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Morton_(playwright) Thomas Morton’s] play 'Speed the Plough' (1798). She is the personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety and is mentioned by various authors from Dickens to Joyce.

'''"motocross"''' 
A cycle race over rough terrain, often desert. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motocross Wikipedia]

'''"May your life be full of lawyers"''' 
Supposedly, the "heavy-dutiest" Mexican curse.

==Page 360==
'''Zoyd's lawyer's voice "suggested Saturday morning more than prime time"''' 
That is, it reminded one of a cartoon character. Lessee, would it be a Smurf or a chipmunk?

'''"What about 'innocent until proven guilty'?" "That was another planet, think they used to call it America, long time ago, before the gutting of the Fourth Amendment. You were automatically guilty the minute they found that marijuana growing on your land."''' 
Pynchon is obviously deeply pissed by this shit (as well he might be); it makes a powerful point in his argument that Big Brother and the Fascists have won. "Another planet" echoes the allegorical conversation between Zoyd and Vond on p. 300.

'''"Y-You mean...life isn't Vegas?"''' 
A very funny line, though (in context) rather ominous as well.

==Page 361==
'''"Musso and Frank's"''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musso_%26_Frank_Grill Musso & Frank Grill] is a famous old-time Hollywood restaurant, established in 1919.

'''"the Grand Canyon"''' 
A lot of detail is packed into a few sentences. Looks like Pynchon has been there, too.

'''"Tex Wiener"''' 
Actor Tex Weiner was on ''General Hospital'' with Sally Kirkland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Hospital ''General Hospital''] is the longest-running ABC Daytime American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network

'''"...fooled once again by the uniform..."''' 
So Frenesi comes by her weakness for sadistic uniformed cops genetically, via Sasha? Or is this something about how opposites need and create each other?

'''"Weww -- it's oow rubbish i'n'i'?"''' 
Well, it's all rubbish, isn't it? Pynchon's fabulous ear again.

==Page 362==
'''"off the scale"''' 
Techno rap, meaning too great to measure, pins the meter, etc.

'''"Naugahyde"''' 
An artificial material designed to resemble leather, made from fabric coated with rubber or vinyl resin.

'''"red-and-gold-flocked"''' 
Flocking is powdered wool or cloth sprinkled onto material (here, wallpaper) producing a raised pattern.

'''"Did they scream?"''' 
A cheap, if effective, trick: Pynchon switches POV (narrators) in mid-scene, giving the tale to producer Sid, and twists the knife by making him playfully reluctant to part with details, so Zuniga has to beg.

'''"Too bad we can't use it."''' 
Christ! Have we been watching Zuniga's damn movie all this time? Directed by Frenesi???

'''"Kissing a young pale melon, under a golden pregnant lollapalooza of a moon."''' 
Sasha's dream is sweet and surreal, but it seems insufficiently motivated. Would she really forgive Frenesi so easily?

==Page 363==
'''"Holocaust Pixels.'''" 
Cool name for a rock band -- and another TV reference. ([[Chapter 12#Page_226|See note, p. 226.]])

Song: "Like a Meat Loaf." 
Great song! Also the Return of the Thanatoid Lunch Meat. Also an echo of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

'''The Thanatoids are "acting rowdier than DL or Takeshi had ever seen them."''' 
The only reverberation of the big flap that sent the karmic adjustment duo racing off for Shade Creek in the last episode. The Happy Ending rolls on.

==Page 364==
'''"...just a couple o' clicks..."''' 
Clicks = kilometers.

'''"Bardo"''' 
Bardo is the after-death realm in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_book_of_the_dead ''Tibetan Book of the Dead'']. The trick is to avoid rebirth, but most people fuck up and let themselves be trapped in a new life. Weed tells of looking for a just-fertilized egg in which to be reborn, "seeking out men and women in the act of sex...in a...smoke-tarnished district of sex shows and porno theaters." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Brothers The Mitchell Brothers] atmosphere is cute. In Tibet a lama keeps whispering the instructions in your dead ear so you don't make these little boo-boos ("couldn't find 'em, time ran out"). Pynchon implies that it's those with "too much still on [their minds]," i.e., unfinished business, that can't quite get permanently dead.

==Page 365==
'''"But what if I am the payback? If your account is zeroed out at last?"''' 
Weed's response to Prairie's offer is a little inconclusive, but note the zero.

'''"Thanatoids dream, though not always when we think we do--"''' 
Weed's dream is extremely powerful and the image is quite writerly. Is the coroner he's looking for "to reveal to the world at last my murder, my murderers" really Pynchon? Are the "companions" who keep trying to find this coroner the readers of Vineland? Faithful hippies? Those who refuse to buy the rewritten version of the Sixties? All of the above? Prairie says it's DL & Takeshi, Weed thinks maybe it's his parents. It might even be the Pisk sisters.

==Page 366==
'''"It was all for love... It was political... A rebel cop... The orders of a repressive regime..."''' 
Pynchon seems aware that his readers (the "companions") may be confused.

'''"Sometimes I think it could be my parents"''' 
Recall ([[Chapter_11#Page_206|page 206 notes]]) that Weed is based partly on Pynchon himself. ''Vineland's'' dedication is "For my mother and father". So this passage could be Pynchon speaking of or to his own parents.

'''"higher justice"''' 
God, karma, Karmic Adjusters, or Emersonism (cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_369|page 369]]), as opposed to the Department of Justice.

'''Prairie and Weed "soon to become an item"''' 
This is the real happy ending, suggesting that young kids may seek out the truth about the Sixties. (And not just the clothes!)

'''"Prairie would show him secrets of pachinko..."''' 
But how did she learn them? From DL? Pachinko is a Japanese gaming device used for amusement and prizes and is related to pinball machines. Although originally strictly mechanical, modern pachinko machines are a cross between a pinball machine and a video slot machine. Cf. [[Chapter_8#Page_122|page 122]].

==Page 367==
'''"the Traverse-Becker wingding"''' 
Nice image, suggesting the continuity of the Left although making it a picnic is surely some dark irony. (At least it's not a dinner party.)

'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
again, players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights].

'''"the Mother situation"''' 
Nice cinematic touch, superimposing Frenesi and the Mother of Doom (the Queen of Spades).

'''"with Sasha was a woman about forty, who had been a girl in a movie..."''' 
The reunion of Prairie and Frenesi, which has motivated Prairie, and haunted Frenesi, throughout most of the book, is tossed off distressingly quickly, but with at least this one great line.

'''"Commere lemme check those dimples, yes there, they are..."''' 
Sasha's agonizing grandma act is way out of character. We hope! Still, "it's her way of trying to help" ([[#Page 368|p. 368]]).

==Page 368==
You'd think Pynchon would devote a little more ink to the reunion of Frenesi and Prairie, but in fact Frenesi seems to be in the process of fading out here (much as Vond will do in a few pages).

==Page 369==
'''"pasta dishes and grilled tofu contributed by younger elements"''' 
Hello, Becker/Traverse yuppies!

'''"Secret retributions are always restoring the level..."''' 
This marvelous quote from Emerson is deeply optimistic, and goes a long way toward buying off the Happy Ending. Contrasts nicely with Lombroso's "misoneism," the negative feedback loop by which society resists change.

It also provides a counter to the Orwellian (in Pynchon's view) Department of Justice that sponsors Brock Vond and CAMP, as well as a counterpoint to the Eastern idea of karma.

'''"Ask Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
The Happy Ending continues, as we learn of Crocker 'Bud' Scantling's karmic payoff under the wheels of a chip truck.

==Page 370==
'''"Lux Unlimited"''' 
A lux is a unit of luminosity equal to 1 candela sterradian per square meter. Drop that into your next bar room argument. 

Lux is Latin for light. "Fiat Lux", or "Let there be light", is the motto of the University of California.

'''"Take care of your dead, or they'll take care of you."''' 
Confirmation of what the Thanatoids really are ([[#Page 325|see p. 325]]). Also a nice restatement of Santayana's famous quote about "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it (or retake the course)."

'''"Say, Jim"''' 
The title of this made-up half-hour sitcom (a black version of ''Star Trek'') is a reference both to Bones' habitual conversational opening to Captain James Kirk, and to Afro-American slang in which "Jim" is an all-purpose (and generally negative, being short for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws "Jim Crow"]) form of address. This is also another digital gag (white becoming black = zero becoming one).

It also reflects the cultural change in mass entertainment that happened between the sixties and the eighties.

'''"Zoyd and Flash went off looking for beer"''' 
Flash surfaces. No point, really, except for the overall reconciliation Pynchon is forcing on the book.

'''"Robert Musil"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Musil Robert Musil] was an Austrian novelist (1880-1942), whose Proustian style was marked by subtle psychological analysis. His works include ''Young Torless'' and ''The Man Without Qualities''.

''Young Torless'' mixes homoerotic sadism with philosophical discussions of imaginary numbers, so it is relevant to ''Against the Day''. ''The Man Without Qualities'' is a thinly disguised portrait of Walter Rathenau, who is invoked several times in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. So Pynchon is poking fun at himself.

==Page 371==
'''"...talking back to the tube..."''' 
The Beckers and Traverses are politically hip, shown by their talking back, and their suspicion that the "prefascist twilight" is really just "the light...coming from millions of Tubes all showing the same bright colored shadows..." TV as the true opiate of the masses -- or, as the NY commies used to say, "de messes."

==Page 372==
Zoyd feels sorry for Flash, the "unfortunate sucker" who's still with Frenesi; he sees "the need behind the desperado lamps" (eyes). Nice phrase, nice rendition of the healing power of time and distance, and a sweet way to take leave of Zoyd, who seems to have found some peaceful place to rest at least for the moment.

==Page 373==
'''"Minute the tube got hold of you folks, that was it..."''' 
The kid (who speaks for Pynchon, of course) is right. It's funny how so few of us saw the future, fought the Tube. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan McLuhan] was right too, but we only thought we knew what he was talking about.

'''"gold-handled chainsaw"''' 
Sheriff Willis Chunko's celebrated anti-pot weapon takes us full circle from/to Zoyd's ladylike purse-sized model in [[Chapter 1|Chapter 1]].

'''"monster Mopars dialed and eager"''' 
Mopar = the parts division of Chrysler Motors = (here) engines. Dialed = souped up. This is at least the second "dialed" reference in Vineland. It's hot-rod talk, and means more or less the same as the now old-fashioned "blue-printed." The dials refer to a machinist's dial indicators, used to bring once-stock engines into more-than-perfect condition and tune.

==Page 374==
'''"speeding after moonset"''' 
Like in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Road ''Thunder Road''] [1958], the great [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mitchum Robert Mitchum] bootlegging thriller.

'''"quaquaversal beard"''' 
"Quaquaversal" is a geological term meaning "turned or pointing in every direction." It's a good description for a wiry beard.

'''"...go find [Vond] and cancel his series for him..."''' 
Another TV referent.

'''"found it easier now to make out...her own...face"''' 
Now that Prairie has met Frenesi she can see her own face more clearly in Zoyd's. That is, she's not Vond's daughter. More Happy Ending.

==Page 375==
'''"...down out of [the helicopter], hooked by harness and cable to the mother ship above, came Brock Vond..."''' Is Vond's deus ex machina appearance to Prairie a dream? It could be; she was asleep. Then again, "Brock, whom his colleagues were calling 'Death From Slightly Above,' had been out [practicing]." And remember the Madwoman In the Attic ([[Chapter 13#Page 274|p. 274]]).

Pynchon tells you it's not a dream: "The beat ... woke her" and on the next page "she came fully awake".

'''"Death From Slightly Above"''' 
"Mors Ab Alto" or "Death from Above" is the motto of the US 7th Strategic Bomber Wing ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Bomb_Wing Wikipedia]). In the late 1960's and early 1970's they were famous for the "carpet bombing" of Vietnam. Brock Vond flies somewhat lower.

'''"Huey slicks"'''[[Image:UH-1.jpg|thumb|UH-1 Huey Slick|right]] 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UH-1_Iroquois UH-1 Iroquois helicopter] was first designated HU-1 (for "Helicopter, Utility" in backwards Army nomenclature) which led to its nickname "Huey". Although Hueys have been used in a wide variety of roles worldwide, they are closely associated with the Vietnam War, where they were heavily employed. The "slick" version of the Huey lacked external weapons pods, and was mainly used for evacuation and troop transport.

'''"more recaps on this subject than Mark C. Bloome"''' 
Bloome was the owner of a chain of popular tire stores in southern California, the Mark C. Bloome Tire Company.

'''"The original plan had been to go in..., come down vertical, grab her, and winch back up and out--"''' 
Why does Vond want to abduct Prairie? Lust? Pure evil? This is never adequately explained. There's a bit of chat in [[Chapter 14]] discussing Vond's interest in Prairie, but it's not developed any further.

==Page 376==
'''"The key is rapture."''' 
Earlier Vond explained the disappearance of the CotS students the same way. ([[Chapter 12#Page 248|See note, p. 248.]]) Also, it is Frenesi's rapture (or "frenzy") over being dominated that enables Vond to have his way with her.

The Rapture occurs along with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming_of_Christ Second Coming of Christ], telegraphed to the Thanatoids on [[Chapter_15#Page_325|page 325]].

'''"Her tits, master--"''' 
Roscoe becomes Dwight Frye, Vampire Vond's Renfield. ("Rats, master, you promised me rats...")

'''Vond glows "unusually white."''' 
More evidence that he's a vampire. (A-and remember, he sleeps with his eyes open!)

Vampires, although deathly pale, don't glow white. They are afraid of light. But ''Angels'' ...

This is Vond's aura of invincibility, as seen on [[Chapter_13#Page_272|page 272]]. He has powered-up his primary weapon.

'''...can't be my father...Preparation H.'''[[Image:PreparationH.jpg|thumb|Preparation H|right]] 
She isn't Frenesi's clone, she has Zoyd's blood in her too. Vond paralyzes her for a second, but she can't be dominated as easily as Frenesi. In the Rapture, only believers are hoisted to heaven. Prairie doesn't believe in Vond's invincibility. And of course, Pynchon breaks the spell with another ass joke.

'''"Some white male far away must have wakened from a dream."''' 
Reagan? Meese? Nixon? The white male God of the Calvinists?

'''"Brock...now being winched back up..."''' 
Film running backward through the projector. The image is great, but there's something troublesome here. If the novel represents the real world (as we must assume it does, or it would be no more than an empty divertissement), what "real" event in 1984 informs Vond's withdrawal and defeat?

Here is a guess. Suppose REX 84 is taken to be a roundup of dissenters prior to a possible invasion of Nicaragua (cf. [[Chapter_15#Page_353|pg. 353 notes]]). It's late summer 1984 in the novel, so let's guess the Traverse-Becker picnic is always held on Labor Day, falling on September 3 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984 1984]. On September 4, 1984 the Sandinista Front won the Nicaraguan election, considered fair by most international observers. An invasion was no longer possible.

==Page 377==
'''"Asshole, they're all together, one surgical strike..."''' 
Vond is ready to wipe out everyone Frenesi, Flash, Zoyd, Justin, maybe even Prairie just as (presumably) he wiped their computer files earlier.

'''"...[Vond] was gone, following his penis--"''' 
A reprise of the lyrics from "Like a Meat Loaf" ([[Chapter_15#Page 364|p. 364]]): "Well we followed our dicks just a couple o' clicks...")

'''Alexi appears in the clearing, carrying "an old acoustic guitar with Cyrillic stenciling on it, as if he'd been prepared to use it as a weapon."''' 
Like American political folkie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie Woody Guthrie's] guitar, on which the folksinger wrote "This machine kills fascists."

'''"The Movie at Nine"''' 
Pynchon gets into a great male-folksy description of a basketball movie the most developed of any of his synthetic made-for-TV flicks. An elect white team (the Celtics) Vs. a preterite black team (the Lakers). Obviously Pynchon is a Lakers fan. It's a story of great courage, and it sets up Vato and Blood for their "rescue" of the newly Thanatoidized Vond. Vond's car disappears (the way thanatoid vehicles do), and we get a Yurok tale by Vato, implying that by coming to Vineland Brock got too close to the land of the dead (Shade Creek). Maybe that's what woke the Thanatoids up? But by then, V&B Tow is conducting Vond across the River Styxx.

For more on the political/sociological subtext of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakers–Celtics_rivalry#Magic_and_Larry Wikipedia]. The game depicted is probably game 7 of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_NBA_Finals 1984 NBA Finals]. Since the game took place on June 12, Pynchon sticks to ''Vineland's'' themes and its late-summer timeline by including the game as a made-for-TV movie.

Pynchon uses Lakers games to anchor his timeline in [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_Time_and_Narrative_Time_in_Inherent_Vice ''Inherent Vice''].

==Page 378==
'''"Time to lock and load, Blood."''' 
Lock and load = ArmySpeak for "saddle up." Specifically, it means lock on the safety of your firearm and load a live round into the chamber, leaving the weapon armed and ready to fire but safe to carry. (The standard 'Nam response was "Cocked and locked!" meaning "Ready when you are.")

'''"It had been an unusual sort of car..."''' 
Vond's chopper turns into an (underpowered) car, which then disappears itself. Vond's power is fading out and he is too. Cool image, but same problem as above. Did Vond (that is, the totalitarian power freaks he fronts for) fade out in 1984? And if not, isn't it a cheat that he does so in the novel?

==Page 380==
'''"crankless"''' 
That is, without amphetamines.

==Page 381==
'''"...she and Takeshi finally renegotiated the no-sex clause..."''' 
Happy Ending continues. "Whooee!" says DL.

'''"a fractal halo of complications"''' 

Typical Pynchon light-and-color show -- and the second use of the "fractal" buzzword. (It occurs on [[#Page 323|page 323]], as well.) Are neural networks next?

==Page 382==
'''"an inkjet printer moved along the the meridians of his naked skin"''' 
Here, the Puncutron seems like Kafka's torture/execution machine from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_penal_colony ''In the Penal Colony''], but in reverse.

In acupuncture, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine) meridians] are channels in the body through which life-energy flows.

'''"an ivory fescue"''' 
Fescue = a teacher's pointer of high quality.

'''"When the Earth was still a paradise, long, long ago..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's allegory about Hell and Earth may explain a bit about Thanatoids, if you wish to read it that way.

Or perhaps an optimistic view of the end of the Cold War in the Third World, as seen by Pynchon in 1990.

==Page 383==
'''"faceless predators"''' 
This paragraph reads like Pynchon checked his outline, noticed two loose ends (the Kahuna hijack and the monster-stomped laboratory) and tied them up as quickly and crudely as possible. Sloppy work.

'''"despite every Karmic Adjustment resource brought to bear so far"''' 
This provides another motivation for DL & Takeshi's "business" venture.

'''"the night of no white diamonds or even chicken crank"''' 
Chicken crank = the speed Takeshi has been trying to score in the form of chicken feed. There are a number of other references to Takeshi's habitual speed use, not the least of which is his epic journey eastward to the SKA and Puncutron.

'''"the foreign magician and his blond tomato assistant"''' 
Takeshi and DL, of course.

==Page 384==
'''"Russian Johnny B. Goode"''' 
No happy-ending complete without Chuck Berry! Or does he mean "Back In the USSR?" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_B._Goode "Johnny B. Goode"] is a seminal 1958 rock and roll song by Chuck Berry, ranked by ''Rolling Stone'' as the seventh greatest song ever on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/chuck-berry/johnny-b-goode.html Lyrics...] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofD9t_sULM YouTube]

'''"You can come back...take me any place..."''' 
Prairie longs for Vond to come back and abuse her. It must be her genetic predilection for the uniform. Or, perhaps the desire to find out what was heavy enough to make her mom split. It's a bit sick, but maybe Pynchon knows his characters (and the human character) better than we do. ("Every woman adores a fascist / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you." "Daddy," [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_plath Sylvia Plath]) In any case, Pynchon "saves" it by having Desmond return. When it comes to preterite, what can out-pret a girl's dog?

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 14

2011-07-03T21:07:27Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 294==
'''"But when he found out about Prairie...something else, something from his nightmares of forced procreation, must have taken over, because later, in what could only be crippled judgment, Brock was to turn and go after the baby and, noticing Zoyd in the way, arrange for his removal too."''' 
This explains Vond's attack on Zoyd in [[Chapter 4]] -- but note how "crippled judgment" buys off Pynchon's lack of clear motivation for this series of events.

Brock's nightmares are discussed on [[Chapter_13#Page_274|page 274]]. In Pynchon's symbolic system Vond is placed in opposition to life.

'''A great joke about the huge brick of weed that Zuniga plants at Zoyd's pad. "Let me guess," says Zoyd, thinking of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's monolith, "2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]." "Try 20,000 Years In Sing Sing [1933]," replies Zuniga.''' 
This joke is especially funny because both titles include numbers, and because both guys include scholarly references to the years the films were made. (Pynchon, of course, has been doing this throughout, but this is the first time he does it in dialogue).

A monolith of pot also appears in ''Inherent Vice''. See [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#Page_33 pg. 33].

==Page 297==
'''"Following the wisdom of the time"''' 
Pynchon refers, with vague disapproval, to the touchie-feelie California notion that men should "get in touch with their feelings" and, presumably, cry their little hearts out. However, Zoyd, who has gotten used to crying, is finding out that, in fact, big boys don't cry.

'''"Museum of Drug Abuse"''' 
Sure, Pynchon.

==Page 298==
'''"gnathic index"''' 
In craniology, the ratio of the distance from basion to prosthion to the distance from basion to nasion, expressed as a percent of the latter. Aren't you glad you asked?

'''"I know how to take care of Frenesi, asshole..."''' 
Vond is unbearably cruel and sadistic in this interview with Zoyd. Unlike the hero of "Leader of the Pack," the lyrics to which Pynchon uses for a joke on p. 270, Vond is both bad and evil. What an asshole! And he really hates hippies presumably for being childish. But who's really being childish here?

==Page 299==
'''"who feared nothing unless it was taking apart a transmission"''' 
Vond's Scorpiopic self-destructiveness is compared to that of the "beer outlaws" of Zoyd's youth ([[Chapter 4#Page 37|see page 37]]). This observation is quite accurate: Only advanced automotive nerds can take transmissions apart (and get them back together again).

'''"those rectal spasms of fear"''' 
Zoyd once again experiences this not-so-leit-but-definitely-motif in ''Vineland''. (See also pages [[Chapter 1#Page 10|10]], [[Chapter 4#Page 45|45]], [[Chapter 8#Page 116|116]], [[Chapter 11#Page 207|207]].)

==Page 300==
'''"Not the Earth Brock was acquainted with"''' 
A great line!

'''"...squealing, screaming guitar solos that defied any number of rules, that also lifted the blood and reassured the soul..."''' 
Could be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_hendrix Jimi Hendrix]. Or a description of ''Vineland''. But mainly it gives Zoyd an idea that the "real" world still exists, and so will he.

==Page 301==
'''"she calls up one night..."''' 
Vond seems interested in making sure that Frenesi won't be able to find Zoyd and Prairie. Of course this is contradicted by the "public act of craziness" that Vond has insisted Zoyd perform.

On pg. 304 it's Hector, not Vond, who describes the mental disability scam. He says they can keep track of him so long as he picks up his checks, just like one of Hector's Paid Informants. No nationwide publicity is required.

'''"I have her power of attorney, she gave me that even before she gave me her body..."''' 
That is, Frenesi surrendered her identity to Vond first; bondage before intercourse. There's a distant echo here of Mississippi bluesman [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson_%28musician%29 Robert Johnson's] "Traveling Riverside Blues": "She got a mortgage on my body, now, and a lien on my soul."

==Page 302==
'''"the count at 5:30 AM"''' 
Body count, that is a basic security measure in prisons.

==Page 303==
'''"EPT"''' 
Very likely El Paso, Texas. Pynchon has a scene in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677 Against the Day] set in El Paso, and even refers to the city by the same initials.

'''"Agustin Lara tunes"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Lara Augustin Lara] was born in Mexico City in 1896. He began composing songs in 1929, influenced by the popular dances and jazz forms of the 1930s and 40s. He composed well over 400 songs, many of them written for Mexican films. His best known song is probably "Granada." Lara died in 1970.

'''"conjunto"''' 
Spanish for "small band," or "combo."

'''"los vatos de Chiques"''' 
"Chicano dudes."

'''"palabra"''' 

Equivalent in Spanish to "word".

Another instance of Pynchon using this slang is in ''Inherent Vice'' when Bigfoot Bjornson says it to Doc, while also then saying, "semi-palabra" and hooking three fingers like a fang. [will update with pagination]

==Page 306==
[[Image:truckin.jpg|thumb|An R. Crumb Drawing|right]]
'''R. Crumb''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Crumb R. Crumb] is an American illustrator, author of subversive comics. He founded the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_comix Underground Comix] movement, which wanted to distinguish itself from mainstream comics by including subversive, sexually taboo, and counter-cultural material. Crumb is the subject of a fascinating documentary called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumb_(film) Crumb] (1994).

==Page 307==
'''"Prairie kept waking up every couple hours, all the way back to her old baby ways."''' 
This is true baby stuff. Is Pynchon a daddy? Consider also all the baby details, and Prairie's teenagerhood. This is hard stuff to get from a book, but with Pynchon's genius for bringing research alive you never know.

'''"Mucho Maas"''' 
A pun, of course, on "mucho mas" ("much more", in Spanish). Also (and also "of course") ex-husband of Oedipa Maas, and one of the main characters in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49''], in which Mucho is a DJ disgusted by his former incarnation as a used car salesman for a group called N.A.D.A., and becomes dependent on LSD.

==Page 308==
'''"Paranoids concert at the Fillmore"''' 
[http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49''] A band featured in The Crying of Lot 49. Showing that his writing and his novels all take place in the same fictional universe.

'''"absquatulation"''' 
Absquatulate is a coined word, apparently meaning to make off, or decamp. It also makes an appearance in Pynchon's 2006 novel [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']. The OED states it to have originated in the mid-19th Century and to have never had a serious application.

==Page 309==
'''"guest stash"''' 
A special supply of smoke for visitors was not uncommon in the houses of serious weedheads at this time. However, since Zoyd can't find the guest stash at Mucho's house he has to roll his own. Bummer!

'''Lawrence of Arabia [song]''' 

May not be intended at all, but I couldn't read this scene - Zoyd singing Prairie to sleep with this tune (before smoking his newly rolled J) - without thinking about the Skip Spence tune, "Lawrence of Euphoria," from his 1969 record, ''Oar''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oar_(Skip_Spence_album) WIKI]

'''Charles Manson''' 
Although Manson is most famous for the horrible murders committed by his followers, he was, at one time, an aspiring musician. He even hung out with the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson for a time and a recording of his music was released after his trial.

'''[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/arts/music/wild-man-fischer-outsider-musician-dies-at-66.html Wild Man Fischer]''' 
Mentally ill Los Angeles street musician who was discovered on Sunset Strip and signed by Frank Zappa to a record contract with Bizarre Records. Died June 16, 2011. Was also mentioned by Pynchon on page 155 of ''Inherent Vice''.

'''Tiny Tim''' 
An eccentric folk singer who played the ukulele and sang in a strangely beautiful falsetto voice. He's most famous for his version of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." He also shows up in ''Inherent Vice''.

==Page 310==
'''"unforeseen passion"''' 
A good description of Mucho's love for cocaine.

'''"Dr. Hugo Splanchnick"''' 
The entire Splanchnick sequence is immensely funny, including Pynchon's use of "snoot croaker" to describe the doc's specialty.

==Page 311==
[[Image:VWbus.jpg|thumb|Painted VW Bus|right]]
'''"stop-me-search-me VW bus"''' 
The epitome of Sixties California hippie culture, which (wonderful to say) continues to survive, everywhere, to this very day.

'''"'Aw' said the dopers, the speech balloon emerging from their tailpipe"''' 

All of a sudden, we're in 'toontown.

==Page 312==

'''Harry J. Anslinger''' 

Harry Jacob Anslinger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Anslinger WIKI]

'''"...me entiendes como te digo?"''' 
Spanish for "Unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?"

==Page 313==

'''"I guess it's over..."''' 
It seems likely that this is Pynchon delivering the "nut paragraph," as journalists call the central idea in a story. This dialogue seems heartfelt -- especially the stuff about the tube ("keep us distracted, it's what the Tube is for,") and rock 'n' roll ("just another way to claim our attention,") and "Soon they're gonna be coming after everything, not just drugs but beer, cigarettes, sugar, salt, fat, you name it, anything that could remotely please any of your senses...," and "It was the way people used to talk." (314) Yes, it was.

'''"Just please go careful, Zoyd"''' 
Mucho has made much the same settlement with the establishment that Hub Gates has: joined the approved union, settled down, stopped making a fuss.

==Page 314==
'''"''The Best of Sam Cooke'' ... the sermon"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke Sam Cooke] was a singer-songwriter who was a pioneer of Soul music and was shot to death in Los Angeles in 1964. By "the sermon" Pynchon may mean Cooke's song [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Change_Is_Gonna_Come_(song) ''A Change is Gonna Come''] which was released just after his death. Listen on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQU4torUz-Q here].

'''"Enjoy it while you can, while you're light enough for that glass to hold you."''' 
Prairie on top of the Hip Trip pinball machine is a marvelous image capturing the fragility of the moment, the certainty of loss, age, death.

'''"Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge represents a transition, in the metaphysics of the region"''' [[Image:GoldenGateBridge.jpg|thumb|Golden Gate Bridge|right]] 
Great intro to Zoyd in Vineland.

==Page 315==

'''"the way a firearm is... finality...out to sea"''' 
Suicide?

'''"one guitar and one harmonica, playing the blues"''' 

This is a great metaphorical bit, with this exodus of hippies, signaling the end of a generation: the journey begins with them playing rock'n'roll and then reversing the process through history, until finally, back where it all began, a single person, playing the blues.

==Page 316==

'''Harbor of Refuge'''

The historical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Harbor_of_Refuge Harbor of Refuge] is in Delaware. Here Pynchon seems to be creating the same idea for the west coast, however, a much less developed area over the years. Notice the mention of the Corps of Engineers marina on the following page.

See [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258 ''Mason & Dixon'', pg. 258]

==Page 317==

'''Eureka-Crescent City-Vineland megalopolis''' 

Since traveling north on Highway 101, and not hitting Vineland until after Eureka, one could surmise that Vineland is located somewhere between Eureka and Crescent City, probably somewhere around [http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=415 Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park]. The actual topography, with mention to Vineland Bay, suggests the Arcata area, possibly transplanted a bit further north, or even possibly a flip on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Bay Delaware Bay]? [see page 316, and Harbor of Refuge].

The city of Arcata (see a satellite view [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=arcata,+California&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.724817,56.513672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Arcata,+Humboldt,+California&ll=40.767542,-124.109116&spn=0.2595,0.441513&t=h&z=11 here]) approximately (but not perfectly) matches Pynchon's description of the city of Vineland. It even has the Art Deco bridges Pynchon describes. Arcata, of course, is in Humboldt County. However, the name Vineland and Pynchon's references to grape-growing suggest Mendocino County to the south, since Humboldt and Del Norte were too far northwest to be used for wine grapes in the 1980's and earlier. See also
[[Chapter_1#Page_8|page 8]]. Ultimately, there's no reason for Pynchon to geographically match the real world. In his words from the ''Against the Day'' jacket flap, "Maybe it's not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it's what the world might be."

For more on Arcata and marijuana, see [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L20820100422 this] Reuters article.

==Page 320==
'''"spool tenders, zooglers, water bucks and bull punchers"''' 
Logging jobs.

==Page 321==
'''"Many would be the former tripping partners and old flames who came over the years to deal with each other this way across desktops or through computer terminals, as if chosen in secret and sorted into opposing teams...."''' 
Some folks get on Welfare, and others administer it. Another incarnation of the binary/preterite metaphor.

==Page 322==

'''Vineland the Good''' 

The Vikings were the first to find and settle North America. They called it, "Vineland the Good". Following is an excerpt from ''Studies on the Vineland Voyages'' by Gustav Storm:

"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Ericson Leiv Eriksson] on his home-voyage from Norway to Greenland >>discovered Vineland
the Good<<, an event which, in conjunction with his saving off the coast of
Greenland a shipwrecked crew, got him the surname of >>the Lucky<<).
In Icelandic manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries... derived partly
from Latin sources... the noted traveller Nicholas, abbot of Thingeyre... con-
taining special information... where mention is made of the countries west and
south-west of Iceland, a passage on the discovery of Vineland, which accordingly
can be taken as of very ancient date, and at any rate may come from Nicholas...
>>South of Greenland lies Helluland, next Markland, and from thence it is not far
to Vineland the Good, which some think joins Africa." [http://books.google.com/books?id=1d0TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=%22vineland+the+good%22&source=bl&ots=-X0xA_mGLb&sig=KPaspqNHrkHzr2lEwM0q39fbI6E&hl=en&ei=ey2xSvapEMi0tweLnJjmDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22vineland%20the%20good%22&f=false GOOGLE BOOKS LINK]

Also, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland Vinland].

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 9

2011-06-16T21:50:09Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 130==
'''"Fresson process studio photograph"''' 
Photographic printing process that uses coal to produce paper prints with a unique luminosity and grain. Fresson printing produces an image that is characteristically diffused and subtle, reminiscent of the "pointillism" of Impressionist painting. The image is extremely stable; Fresson printing is considered the most archival of any color procedure in use today.

==Page 131==
'''"If you want real ninja product..."''' 
The whole sequence about hiring an assassin is pure cyberpunk schtick.

'''"The Vibrating Palm"''' 
This may be a subtle reference to the old joke-store "buzzer" or "shocker" -- and resonates nicely with the rubber scampi on the previous page. The Vibrating Palm is an actual - though romanticized - technique in Asian martial arts (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Death Touch of Death]).

'''"YakMaf"''' 
Yakuza/Mafia.

==Page 133==
'''"legendary in the dopers' community"''' 
Olympic Boulevard, in Los Angeles, is a major arterial road stretching from 4th Street on the western end of Santa Monica to East Los Angeles -- farther than Wilshire Boulevard and most other streets. Why is the gas station toilet legendary? And why would DL care anyway? All she needs to do is change into her disguise.

In his 2009 psychedelic noir novel ''Inherent Vice'', Pynchon mentions another legendary restroom near Los Angeles:

:"the notorious Oscar's, right across the border from Tijuana, where the toilets were seething round the clock with junkies new and old who'd just scored in Mexico, put the product inside rubber balloons and swallowed them, then crossed back into the U.S. to vomit them back up again." (p.37)

Because this restroom is right across the border, it's not the "legendary" toilet on Olympic Boulevard.

'''"baby-blue shadows..."''' 
Nice description and a precursor to the color of Frenesi's eyes.

==Page 134==
'''"beige hose, white underwear..."''' 
Pynchon's description of DL's Clark Kent outfits is surprisingly accurate, especially for a male. It's like giving the O-O (see note, [[Chapter_6#Page_79|p. 79]]) to a nice Midwestern girl, circa 1960.

==Page 135==
'''"She wasn't sure right away that being sold into white slavery would turn out to be at all beneficial as a career step..."''' 
The kidnap-and-auction sequence is good, fast-moving storytelling: breathless, tense, gripping, light on flashy effects. This is also familiar cyberpunk territory, especially the interview with Wayvone.

==Page 136==
'''"older gentlemen with fingertip deficiencies..."''' 
Yakuza who have screwed up, and demonstrated their remorse by cutting off a fingertip.

==Page 139==
'''"Ufa, mi tratt' a pesci in faccia..."''' 
Literally, "Oof, you've thrown a fish in my face!" It's an ominous Sicilian warning meaning, "You've insulted me most unpleasantly, treated me in the worst possible way!"

==Page 141==
'''"I knew it!"''' 
Prairie breaking into the seamless narrative is almost a Brechtian alienation effect. By now the story is moving so strongly that we've totally forgotten the "as-told-to" frame.

'''"How could [Frenesi] have ever gone near somebody like this Brock guy?"''' 
Good question. Pynchon never really answers it -- unless we accept the idea of Frenesi embodying America's fatal fascination with authority.

'''"what-is-reality exercises"''' 
Reminiscent of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

'''"Ninja Death Touch calculator"''' 
This joke strikes another false note. The entire sub-plot revolving around the Vibrating Palm is broad comedy, of course, but this smart-ass gag is severely out-of-scale.

==Page 142==
'''"might as well stay home -- watch a Run Run Shaw movie!"''' 
Hong-Kong-based Run-Run Shaw produced the popular (and violent) Bruce Lee karate flicks, also lots of action-packed swords and sorcery adventures (like the ones that clearly inspired a lot of the DL and Takeshi sub-plot).

'''"yellow headlamps of the tech squads..."''' 
The scene in the Footprint is reminiscent of the monolith excavation on the moon in 2001. Also, most of the Japanese dialogue is phrased in Pynchon's unique, sounds-just-like-a-movie style.

Hai! Pynchon usually ends the Japanese characters' lines with exclamation points, so they sound like actors screaming at each other in poorly dubbed Japanese movies. Hai! Or people on meth?

'''"...the shadowy world conglomerate Chipco..."''' 
This imaginary entity (an echo, perhaps of the sinister YoYoDyne Corporation in The Crying of Lot 49) is presumably some Intel-like company whose microprocessor chips are sold world wide. No doubt the chips are designed to keep a covert watch on everything, and report back to Chipco -- similar to Byron the Bulb and his fellow gridmates in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''"gigantic animal footprint"'''[[Image:Godzilla.jpg|thumb|Poster for ''Godzilla'' (1954)|right]] 
Godzilla's size is pretty well known, and this (as we shall see) sauroid footprint is too large to be that of the big G. However, Godzilla is a product of Japanese movie model technology of the fifties, so who knows what the eighties might bring?

In the ''Godzilla'' poster to the right, the face on the lower left is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Shimura Takashi Shimura], Takeshi's namesake (cf. [[Chapter_5#Page_65|page 65 notes]]), who plays the scientist sent to investigate Godzilla-sightings in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1954_film) movie].

'''"Wawazume Life & Non-Life"''' 
Is this a joke? And what kind? Maybe they insure things other than lives. Maybe Thanatoids get "non-life" insurance. Or it could just be a satirically "tactful" Japanese way of referring to death.

It's a joke. They also insure property and liability (zume sounds like "sue me").

==Page 144==
'''"Eastern bloc...South African"''' 
If you turn "RSA", Republic of South Africa, upside down it looks like Cyrillic writing. A political joke.

Hardly. Turned upside down you would get jibberish. If you look at "RSA" in a mirror you would get a (slight) Cyrillic effect. Anyway, Pynchon knows enough Russian (see GR) not to have made this mistake. It is not a political joke, but a geographic joke, if anything.

==Page 143==
'''"By the time...gods of the sky."''' 
Note that this immensely long and complicated sentence takes up more than half the page!

==Page 145==
'''"Singapore Sling"''' 
A frivolous cocktail with a pleasant flavor and a lethal punch: the signature drink of the bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a British colony taken by the Japanese in WWII. Conceivably, Minoru might have been stationed there, and picked up a liking for this tourist syrup.

==Page 146==
'''"Chuck, the world's most invisible robot"''' 
Like the fastest draw in the West. Want to see it again?

'''"some planet-wide struggle had been going on for years"''' 
More Pynchonian paranoia.

'''"the Himalayan caper"''' 
Story is written in mock Le Carre shorthand. Here (as elsewhere) Pynchon penetrates to the essence of a genre and gives us a few masterly strokes that evoke the same effect as an entire novel by a lesser writer.

'''"Semtex"''' 
For many years, Semtex has been the plastic explosive of choice for sophisticated aircraft bombers and other terrorists.

'''"pirate ships of the stratosphere"''' 
Presumably, they mount attacks like the one on the Kahuna flight.

==Page 147==
'''"Kutsushita-san!"''' 
lit. "Mr. Socks!"

'''"We called you the Kid."''' 
As in, "I never did the Kenosha Kid?" (See Gravity's Rainbow, p. 60.)

'''"disco music coming out the club doors"''' 
Cyberpunk atmosphere.

==Page 148==
'''"The Yak Doc Workshop"''' 
This may be a riff on Doc Yak, a comic book character.

Or Yakusa Documents.

'''"Takeshi...saw Vond...and thought...it was himself..."''' 
Vond and Takeshi look alike. Does this, as they say, signify? Takeshi as anti-Vond? It's hard to imagine a dark Japanese and a light Caucasian looking alike, but anyway, there's one for each of the tomatoes: an adjuster (insurance or karma, ma'am?) for DL, and a badass for Frenesi.

I guess that's the joke.

'''"''gaijin''"''' 
Japanese for foreigner, stranger, outsider.

==Page 149==
'''"Found a cab"''' 
Once again Prairie startles us by breaking into the gripping flashback narrative, but this time the present-tense Takeshi breaks in with her, having just arrived at the SKA retreat. Very cinematic. Takeshi moves instantaneously from past to present, a double-exposure match-dissolve effect.

'''"Moe!"'''[[Image:ThreeStooges.jpg|thumb|The Three Stooges|right]] 
The first of several references to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_stooges The Three Stooges], a nothing-if-not-preterite comedy trio specializing in crude, cruel slapstick.

'''"fingering its smooth rigid contours"''' 
The mock-porno is cute.

==Page 151==
'''"I couldn't see shit."''' 
DL mistakes Takeshi for Vond because of her fuzzy contact lenses. This mistaken-identity riff is worthy of Shakespeare at his most far-fetched and funny.

'''"Eeoo!"''' 
Flash! Pynchon's ear fails! This just isn't as close to the Valspeak expression of disgust as we expect from our boy. The transliteration needs a little more "u" or something.

Totally disagree with above, for what it's worth. "Eeoo" is perfect, as "oo" automatically brings about "too" sound. Also looks much better than anything with a "u" would.

==Page 153==
'''"Fuckin' Vond. He's the Roadrunner."''' 
Yes, he is.

'''Kunoichi Retreat''' 
see [[Chapter_8#Page 107|page 107]]

==Page 154==
'''"Licensed DOM's"''' 
Doctor of Medicine?

Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Cf. page 176

Also, in S&M slang, a male dominant.

==Page 155==
'''"Ninjette Coffee Mess"''' 
Navspeak. In the military, particularly the Navy, coffee mess is a little area where the coffee maker, cups, etc. are kept.

==Page 156==
'''"dorai kuriiningu"''' 
"dry cleaning" More Jive Japlish.

'''"perchloroethylene"''' 
A highly toxic chemical often used for cleaning movie film.

'''"croaker"''' 
A company doctor ([http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/croaker-2-tf/ def]).

==Page 157==
'''"Not a bar, Fumimota-san."''' 
Silly joke, nicely placed.

==Page 158==
'''"Evoex"''' 
The etymology of this new tranquilizer is clearly from the bacchanalian ejaculation (and crossword puzzle word) "evoe!"

==Page 159==
'''"Michiko Yomama"''' 
A nasty pun, based on the black insult, "Yo' mama!" Let your guard down for a second, and the guy slips in one of these every time.

==Page 160==
'''"Nukey"''' 
Orgasm and atomic detonation meet in one of Pynchon's most awful/wonderful puns (nuke = nookey).

'''sleep ... shave''' 
Meth-logic. Also a parody of the movie situation where a character must stay awake to live.

The classic film-noir [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film) ''DOA''], where a man is given a slow-acting poison and must find his own murderer, is also relevant to this chapter.

==Page 161==
'''"technically dead"''' 
Since Takeshi lives without fear, this makes him a perfect samurai, and echoes the idea on p. 29 about how a samurai is always prepared to die.

==Page 162==
'''"Just Like a William Powell"''' 
Echoes "Like a Meat Loaf" (p. 363), and, of course, Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

Movie references in the song:

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man_(film) ''The Thin Man'']
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_Come_Home ''Lassie Come Home'']
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan_Finds_a_Son! ''Tarzan Finds a Son!'']

Also, Flatfoot Floogie refers to the 1938 [http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-musicians/gaillard-slim-biography Slim Gaillard] song [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Foot_Floogie_(with_a_Floy_Floy) ''Flatfoot Floogie with a Floy, Floy''] (original recording on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFVeJ4wHWdQ YouTube]). The use of "real McCoy" may be entirely innocent, or a reference to the television show [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_McCoys ''The Real McCoys''].

==Page 163==
'''"Which reminds me, about your PX bill..."''' 
If you had any doubts about the samurai/ninjette subplot being for laughs, this page should convince you.

==Page 164==
'''"Puncutron"''' 
An imaginary therapeutic device whose name suggests an infernal combination of eastern medicine (acupuncture) and high-energy western technology (cyclotron). There's a bit of "punk" in there, too.

'''"Detractors included...managed to keep."''' 
A silly sentence, written in painful mock-German syntax for no discernible reason.

'''"Taiwanese Healthy Brain Aerobics"''' 
More foolishness, this time mixed with music. The selection of tapes for Puncutron listening includes The All-Regimental Bagpipes play Prime Time Favorites (the Tube again!), and perhaps Pynchon's best judgmental title: The Chipmunks Sing Marvin Hamlisch.

==Page 166==
'''Jaime Sommers''' 
Jaime Sommers is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bionic_Woman Bionic Woman].

'''Eve and her sister, Lilith''' 
According to an ancient legend, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith Lilith] was not Eve's sister but was Adam's first wife. But Lilith haunts many different fables, traditions, stories in many different cultures.

Lilith is the eponym for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_Fair Lilith Fair], a music festival (1997-1999) of only female artists.

Rochelle is using "sister" in the feminist sense, as in "Sisters are doing it for themselves".

This is also interesting in the context that this is one of the only stories the reader gets in regard to what secrets/stories/philosophies are possibly taught at the Kunoichi Retreat. What seems clear is that over the years, they are more interested in making money than spiritually healing folks, so this is a nice tidbit, probably used to hook women into this Ninjette Retreat, and facilitate a mainline into their pocketbooks. Here used in a comical, and opposite way, re: Takeshi/DL.

Actually, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunoichi Kunoichi] Retreat is a parody of the many Zen retreats in Northern California, such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gulch_Farm Green Gulch Farm]. People pay to stay there and do manual farming labor to chill-out. In Pynchon's parody, the retreat is feminist and faintly BDSM. As Pynchon points out on page 107, they had to seek "cash flow" in order to avoid the financial fate of their predecessors, but there's no indication that they've given up their principles (whatever they are) entirely. See also [[Chapter_8#Page 107|page 107]].

'''"...men convinced us that we were the natural administrators of this thing 'morality'..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's feminist Eden parable suggests an interesting modern scenario: Frenesi = Eve, DL = Lilith, Vond = Serpent. This would help explain Frenesi/America's irresistible attraction for the authoritarian Vond.

'''Oscar Goldman''' 
Oscar Goldman is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bionic_Woman Bionic Woman]'s boss.

==Page 167==
'''"The Ordeal of the Thousand Broadway Show Tunes"''' 
Transcendental malarkey.

'''"YOUR MAMA EATS, how can we resist?"''' 
Aggro dining.

==Page 169==
'''"Cheapsat"''' 
Preterite communications personified.

==Page 170==
'''"Like Death, Only Different."''' 
While this is a nice definition of the "oid" suffix, it begs the question of exactly what Thanatoid's are.

'''"But we watch a lot of Tube"''' 
Thanatoids watch lots of TV, trying to advance further into the condition of death. This makes them Reaganite kids? Couch potatoes? Embittered hippies? Everyone in America? Anyway, advancing further into the condition of death is only a restatement of the law of entropy, which may mean that everyone in the universe is a Thanatoid.

People watching television in a darkened room look dead. They are immobile, and their faces have a blue tinge from the light of the TV screen.

At first Pynchon makes it sound like a lifestyle, similar to Goths. The name of a public Goth dance party in Berkeley was "Not Dead Yet". But gradually he makes himself clearer...

==Page 171==
'''"checking the edges of the frame."''' 
Does this mean Takeshi's in a film? Or is Pynchon just grabbing a handy cinema term?

The latter.

'''"go the opposite way! Back to life!"''' 
This anti-entropic movement makes Takeshi a great hero, a symbol of intelligence (the only truly anti-entropic entity), the life force. Cf. [[Chapter_9#Page_148|page 148]]

==Page 172==
'''"Shade"''' 
(as in Shade Creek) = ghost.

One can become invisible in the shadows.

'''"thick fluids in flexible containers"''' 
i.e., scumbags

'''"The Woodbine Motel"''' 
Harks back, perchance, to the 1870's, the Union Pacific railroad scandal, and the Credit Mobilier. When one party was asked, under oath, where the money was, he replied that it had "gone where the woodbine twineth."

Pynchon, just as Fisk in the above quote, is most likely referring to the song [http://www.musicofyesterday.com/sheetmusic/G/Gone_Where_The_Woodbine_Twineth.php ''Gone Where the Woodbine Twineth''], an elegy for dead Civil War soldiers. It was written by Apsley Street, a pseudonym of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsley_Street Septimus Winner], a 19th Century songwriter who was arrested for treason. Also, let's not forget the scary episode of ''The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'' called [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394103/ ''Where the Woodbine Twineth''].

'''"The Zero Inn"''' 
Very thanatoid, preterite and Zoyd-like. Also another zero.

==Page 173==
'''Thanatoids are "victims of karmic imbalances unanswered blows, unredeemed suffering..."''' 
So are the Thanatoids victims of the Seventies? Or another version of the preterites in Gravity's Rainbow? Maybe they're just over-determined ghosts of some sort. This description is similar to the kind of thing that psychics talk about when they're trying to make your poltergeists go away; it's the unresolved baggage that keeps the ghosties on the move, and out of wherever they belong. Remember, too, that Shade Creek is "a psychic jumping-off town" where the Thanatoids wait "for the data necessary to pursue their needs and aims (i.e., ghostlike revenge) among the still living..." ([[#Page 171|p. 171]])

'''"... they're ghosts."''' 
Here Pynchon flat-out tells you what the Thanatoids are.

'''"Although the streets were irregular and steeply pitched..."''' 
The description is an attempt to capture the effect of an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher M.C. Escher] drawing or perhaps the Expressionist sets in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''] [1920].

==Page 174==
'''Thanatoids are injured by "what was done to them."''' 
Here they seem like left-over hippies, Vietnam vets, America's victims. Preterites who want revenge.

'''"The amount of memory on a chip doubles every year and a half!"''' 
Sounds like a variant on Moore's Law, that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

'''"In traditional karmic adjustment ..."''' 
The Thanatoids are a combination of Christian purgatory (where souls wait before proceeding to heaven), and European folkloric poltergeists (which haunt a particular location where they have been wronged, until they see that their injury is avenged). Takeshi offers these Western ghosts the Eastern idea of karma, roughly, supernatural justice over multiple reincarnations. But this is America, so Takeshi's hustle is to offer Modern Karmic Adjustment, which speeds-up the process by avoiding the cycles of birth-death-reincarnation. If this fails, there's always the reincarnation route.

Since this is all a parody of California Zen and the Human Potential Movement, the question is do the Thanatoids actually need to be avenged, or only to feel avenged, i.e. to be at peace, in order to advance to the next level of Death? Does watching television dramas where revenge is achieved and justice triumphs dissipate their righteous anger, lead to inaction, and further their advance into Death?

==Page 175==
'''"Karmic adjustment"''' 
Well, yes, it's a nice progression from insurance adjustment, but what does Takeshi actually do? Prairie is still wondering on page 192, and DL never lets on. In any case, it looks like these Thanatoids are dead California yuppies; a resource to be exploited by preterite tradesmen.

'''"interesting work with airplanes"''' 
So, during World War II Takeshi was a kamikaze hence the same Takeshi who's in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']! (See Viking edition, [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700 page 690]) This brings up an interesting, though peripheral issue: As a Kamikaze, Takeshi flew a Zero. A-and there's a reference on [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_663-673 page 672] (of ''GR'') to "Zeros bearing comrades away," reminding us of those human lives as binary code in God's PC. As noted, there are lots of other "zero" reverences (that's a pun, not a typo) in ''Vineland''.

==Page 176==
'''"Domo komarimashita!"''' 
Japanese for "Thanks a lot!" or "You're welcome."

==Page 178==
'''"Interpersonal Programming and the Problem Towee"''' 
Pynchon definitely has an attitude on this kind of California stuff. He also seems to have a grudge against Mercedes drivers.

'''"Sounds like the team I bet on last week."''' 
Vato gets to make the bad pun this time. This is a great montage of the growing relationship between Vato, Blood, Takeshi, and DL.

==Page 179==
'''"Vato wanted it to be a sitcom."''' 
Another example of how deeply TV has invaded our thoughts.

==Page 180==
'''"I'm Chip! I'm Dale!"''' 
A sly comparison of chipmunks: Disney's cartoonic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_%27n_Dale Chip 'n Dale] v. Bagdasarian's sonic Alvin, Simon, and Theodore ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chipmunks "Alvin and the Chipmunks"]).

==Page 181==
'''"a cement lounge deep within the Long Binh complex"''' 
So Vato and Blood either worked at, or were incarcerated in, the Long Binh military prison. Cf. [[Chapter_6#Page_87|page 87]].

==Page 185==

'''"less light on it than the space I'm in"''' 

Here Vato and Blood are having an "argument about light" - see p. 201

Also, it's a paranoid flashback from past combat in Vietnam.

==Page 186==
'''"octogenarihexation"''' 
86'd = thrown out, usually in reference to a drinking establishment. Is it a coincidence that this occurs on page 186? [[Chapter_15#Page_342|See also 43'd, p.342...]]

'''"Yuroks"''' 
The native American Yurok tribe lives along the lower 36 miles of the Klamath River, and along the California coast from Wilson Creek to Trinidad Bay. This may provide a clue to the location of Vineland County. Being Indians, the Yuroks are, naturally, preterite in the Pynchon universe. The woge (note lower case) seem to be Yurok thanatoids, therefore ultra-preterite.

==Page 187==
'''"Bernard Herrmann"''' 
The famous film composer, whose credits include, among many other great picture soundtracks, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock's] classics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_%281960_film%29 ''Psycho''] [1960] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 ''Vertigo''] [1958].

Listen to Bernard Herrmann's music from ''Psycho'' on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDtJUSYoLDE&feature=related YouTube].

'''"A Toyota in the treetops"''' 
Is this a tip of the hat to the boat in the tree in Marquez's famous novel of magic realism, ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''?

As surreal as it may seem, in California cars frequently drive off of mountain roads and fall into canyons. They are pulled out using teams of tow trucks. But they usually crush the trees beneath.

'''"...vanish unaccountably between Shade Creek and the V & B pound, as Thanatoid units...had been known to do..."''' 
Vanishing Thanatoid cars may push the envelope of fantasy a bit too far. And yet, and yet... They wind up in the tops of trees, you see. It's kind of like 'toon cars: 'toons can drive real cars, real people can drive 'toon cars. Plus, it sets up (much later) the disappearance of Vond's ride in Chapter 15.

==Page 188==
'''Sate..."''' 
A totally abrupt scene-change to Takeshi's, a literary jump cut.

'''"Weed Atman"''' 
Another great name. Weed = marijuana. And [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weed,_California Weed] is a city in Northern California. Also perhaps, an echo of Steven Weed, abandoned boyfriend of heiress Patty Hearst, which raises a very faint reverberation of Frenesi as Patty-in-reverse. Atman = Hindu for breath, the principle of life, the World Soul.

Cf [[Chapter_11#Page_206| page 206]] for more on Weed's name.

'''"Prairie was hearing this, in her turn, from DL..."''' 
Prairie breaks into the narrative, bouncing us unexpectedly back to the present. These abrupt break-ins by Prairie are fun.

==Page 189==
'''"Variety Loaves...not, as once supposed, safely dead but no, only, queerly, sleeping..."''' 
Thanatoid lunch meat!

==Page 190==
'''"Me gotta go"''' 
A line from Richard Berry's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie "Louie Louie"], made famous by the Kingsmen.

==Page 191==
'''"FFAR"''' 
Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket Launcher, a rather nasty device attached to Apache helicopters around about the time Pynchon was writing Vineland.

'''"Kick Out the Jambs"''' 
Definitely a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_5 the MC 5] tune "Kick Out the Jams." But is "jambs" a typo or a pun?

Definitely a pun, and a genius one. Thoughts of ninjas, or FBI, or whoever, kicking doors in. Also, apt that the MC5 were affiliated with the far left, anti-establishment, counterculture, etc.

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 9

2011-06-16T21:31:05Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 130==
'''"Fresson process studio photograph"''' 
Photographic printing process that uses coal to produce paper prints with a unique luminosity and grain. Fresson printing produces an image that is characteristically diffused and subtle, reminiscent of the "pointillism" of Impressionist painting. The image is extremely stable; Fresson printing is considered the most archival of any color procedure in use today.

==Page 131==
'''"If you want real ninja product..."''' 
The whole sequence about hiring an assassin is pure cyberpunk schtick.

'''"The Vibrating Palm"''' 
This may be a subtle reference to the old joke-store "buzzer" or "shocker" -- and resonates nicely with the rubber scampi on the previous page. The Vibrating Palm is an actual - though romanticized - technique in Asian martial arts (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Death Touch of Death]).

'''"YakMaf"''' 
Yakuza/Mafia.

==Page 133==
'''"legendary in the dopers' community"''' 
Olympic Boulevard, in Los Angeles, is a major arterial road stretching from 4th Street on the western end of Santa Monica to East Los Angeles -- farther than Wilshire Boulevard and most other streets. Why is the gas station toilet legendary? And why would DL care anyway? All she needs to do is change into her disguise.

In his 2009 psychedelic noir novel ''Inherent Vice'', Pynchon mentions another legendary restroom near Los Angeles:

:"the notorious Oscar's, right across the border from Tijuana, where the toilets were seething round the clock with junkies new and old who'd just scored in Mexico, put the product inside rubber balloons and swallowed them, then crossed back into the U.S. to vomit them back up again." (p.37)

Because this restroom is right across the border, it's not the "legendary" toilet on Olympic Boulevard.

'''"baby-blue shadows..."''' 
Nice description and a precursor to the color of Frenesi's eyes.

==Page 134==
'''"beige hose, white underwear..."''' 
Pynchon's description of DL's Clark Kent outfits is surprisingly accurate, especially for a male. It's like giving the O-O (see note, [[Chapter_6#Page_79|p. 79]]) to a nice Midwestern girl, circa 1960.

==Page 135==
'''"She wasn't sure right away that being sold into white slavery would turn out to be at all beneficial as a career step..."''' 
The kidnap-and-auction sequence is good, fast-moving storytelling: breathless, tense, gripping, light on flashy effects. This is also familiar cyberpunk territory, especially the interview with Wayvone.

==Page 136==
'''"older gentlemen with fingertip deficiencies..."''' 
Yakuza who have screwed up, and demonstrated their remorse by cutting off a fingertip.

==Page 139==
'''"Ufa, mi tratt' a pesci in faccia..."''' 
Literally, "Oof, you've thrown a fish in my face!" It's an ominous Sicilian warning meaning, "You've insulted me most unpleasantly, treated me in the worst possible way!"

==Page 141==
'''"I knew it!"''' 
Prairie breaking into the seamless narrative is almost a Brechtian alienation effect. By now the story is moving so strongly that we've totally forgotten the "as-told-to" frame.

'''"How could [Frenesi] have ever gone near somebody like this Brock guy?"''' 
Good question. Pynchon never really answers it -- unless we accept the idea of Frenesi embodying America's fatal fascination with authority.

'''"what-is-reality exercises"''' 
Reminiscent of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

'''"Ninja Death Touch calculator"''' 
This joke strikes another false note. The entire sub-plot revolving around the Vibrating Palm is broad comedy, of course, but this smart-ass gag is severely out-of-scale.

==Page 142==
'''"might as well stay home -- watch a Run Run Shaw movie!"''' 
Hong-Kong-based Run-Run Shaw produced the popular (and violent) Bruce Lee karate flicks, also lots of action-packed swords and sorcery adventures (like the ones that clearly inspired a lot of the DL and Takeshi sub-plot).

'''"yellow headlamps of the tech squads..."''' 
The scene in the Footprint is reminiscent of the monolith excavation on the moon in 2001. Also, most of the Japanese dialogue is phrased in Pynchon's unique, sounds-just-like-a-movie style.

Hai! Pynchon usually ends the Japanese characters' lines with exclamation points, so they sound like actors screaming at each other in poorly dubbed Japanese movies. Hai! Or people on meth?

'''"...the shadowy world conglomerate Chipco..."''' 
This imaginary entity (an echo, perhaps of the sinister YoYoDyne Corporation in The Crying of Lot 49) is presumably some Intel-like company whose microprocessor chips are sold world wide. No doubt the chips are designed to keep a covert watch on everything, and report back to Chipco -- similar to Byron the Bulb and his fellow gridmates in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''"gigantic animal footprint"'''[[Image:Godzilla.jpg|thumb|Poster for ''Godzilla'' (1954)|right]] 
Godzilla's size is pretty well known, and this (as we shall see) sauroid footprint is too large to be that of the big G. However, Godzilla is a product of Japanese movie model technology of the fifties, so who knows what the eighties might bring?

In the ''Godzilla'' poster to the right, the face on the lower left is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Shimura Takashi Shimura], Takeshi's namesake (cf. [[Chapter_5#Page_65|page 65 notes]]), who plays the scientist sent to investigate Godzilla-sightings in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1954_film) movie].

'''"Wawazume Life & Non-Life"''' 
Is this a joke? And what kind? Maybe they insure things other than lives. Maybe Thanatoids get "non-life" insurance. Or it could just be a satirically "tactful" Japanese way of referring to death.

It's a joke. They also insure property and liability (zume sounds like "sue me").

==Page 144==
'''"Eastern bloc...South African"''' 
If you turn "RSA", Republic of South Africa, upside down it looks like Cyrillic writing. A political joke.

==Page 143==
'''"By the time...gods of the sky."''' 
Note that this immensely long and complicated sentence takes up more than half the page!

==Page 145==
'''"Singapore Sling"''' 
A frivolous cocktail with a pleasant flavor and a lethal punch: the signature drink of the bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a British colony taken by the Japanese in WWII. Conceivably, Minoru might have been stationed there, and picked up a liking for this tourist syrup.

==Page 146==
'''"Chuck, the world's most invisible robot"''' 
Like the fastest draw in the West. Want to see it again?

'''"some planet-wide struggle had been going on for years"''' 
More Pynchonian paranoia.

'''"the Himalayan caper"''' 
Story is written in mock Le Carre shorthand. Here (as elsewhere) Pynchon penetrates to the essence of a genre and gives us a few masterly strokes that evoke the same effect as an entire novel by a lesser writer.

'''"Semtex"''' 
For many years, Semtex has been the plastic explosive of choice for sophisticated aircraft bombers and other terrorists.

'''"pirate ships of the stratosphere"''' 
Presumably, they mount attacks like the one on the Kahuna flight.

==Page 147==
'''"Kutsushita-san!"''' 
lit. "Mr. Socks!"

'''"We called you the Kid."''' 
As in, "I never did the Kenosha Kid?" (See Gravity's Rainbow, p. 60.)

'''"disco music coming out the club doors"''' 
Cyberpunk atmosphere.

==Page 148==
'''"The Yak Doc Workshop"''' 
This may be a riff on Doc Yak, a comic book character.

Or Yakusa Documents.

'''"Takeshi...saw Vond...and thought...it was himself..."''' 
Vond and Takeshi look alike. Does this, as they say, signify? Takeshi as anti-Vond? It's hard to imagine a dark Japanese and a light Caucasian looking alike, but anyway, there's one for each of the tomatoes: an adjuster (insurance or karma, ma'am?) for DL, and a badass for Frenesi.

I guess that's the joke.

'''"''gaijin''"''' 
Japanese for foreigner, stranger, outsider.

==Page 149==
'''"Found a cab"''' 
Once again Prairie startles us by breaking into the gripping flashback narrative, but this time the present-tense Takeshi breaks in with her, having just arrived at the SKA retreat. Very cinematic. Takeshi moves instantaneously from past to present, a double-exposure match-dissolve effect.

'''"Moe!"'''[[Image:ThreeStooges.jpg|thumb|The Three Stooges|right]] 
The first of several references to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_stooges The Three Stooges], a nothing-if-not-preterite comedy trio specializing in crude, cruel slapstick.

'''"fingering its smooth rigid contours"''' 
The mock-porno is cute.

==Page 151==
'''"I couldn't see shit."''' 
DL mistakes Takeshi for Vond because of her fuzzy contact lenses. This mistaken-identity riff is worthy of Shakespeare at his most far-fetched and funny.

'''"Eeoo!"''' 
Flash! Pynchon's ear fails! This just isn't as close to the Valspeak expression of disgust as we expect from our boy. The transliteration needs a little more "u" or something.

Totally disagree with above, for what it's worth. "Eeoo" is perfect, as "oo" automatically brings about "too" sound. Also looks much better than anything with a "u" would.

==Page 153==
'''"Fuckin' Vond. He's the Roadrunner."''' 
Yes, he is.

'''Kunoichi Retreat''' 
see [[Chapter_8#Page 107|page 107]]

==Page 154==
'''"Licensed DOM's"''' 
Doctor of Medicine?

Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Cf. page 176

Also, in S&M slang, a male dominant.

==Page 155==
'''"Ninjette Coffee Mess"''' 
Navspeak. In the military, particularly the Navy, coffee mess is a little area where the coffee maker, cups, etc. are kept.

==Page 156==
'''"dorai kuriiningu"''' 
"dry cleaning" More Jive Japlish.

'''"perchloroethylene"''' 
A highly toxic chemical often used for cleaning movie film.

'''"croaker"''' 
A company doctor ([http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/croaker-2-tf/ def]).

==Page 157==
'''"Not a bar, Fumimota-san."''' 
Silly joke, nicely placed.

==Page 158==
'''"Evoex"''' 
The etymology of this new tranquilizer is clearly from the bacchanalian ejaculation (and crossword puzzle word) "evoe!"

==Page 159==
'''"Michiko Yomama"''' 
A nasty pun, based on the black insult, "Yo' mama!" Let your guard down for a second, and the guy slips in one of these every time.

==Page 160==
'''"Nukey"''' 
Orgasm and atomic detonation meet in one of Pynchon's most awful/wonderful puns (nuke = nookey).

'''sleep ... shave''' 
Meth-logic. Also a parody of the movie situation where a character must stay awake to live.

The classic film-noir [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film) ''DOA''], where a man is given a slow-acting poison and must find his own murderer, is also relevant to this chapter.

==Page 161==
'''"technically dead"''' 
Since Takeshi lives without fear, this makes him a perfect samurai, and echoes the idea on p. 29 about how a samurai is always prepared to die.

==Page 162==
'''"Just Like a William Powell"''' 
Echoes "Like a Meat Loaf" (p. 363), and, of course, Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

Movie references in the song:

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man_(film) ''The Thin Man'']
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_Come_Home ''Lassie Come Home'']
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan_Finds_a_Son! ''Tarzan Finds a Son!'']

Also, Flatfoot Floogie refers to the 1938 [http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-musicians/gaillard-slim-biography Slim Gaillard] song [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Foot_Floogie_(with_a_Floy_Floy) ''Flatfoot Floogie with a Floy, Floy''] (original recording on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFVeJ4wHWdQ YouTube]). The use of "real McCoy" may be entirely innocent, or a reference to the television show [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_McCoys ''The Real McCoys''].

==Page 163==
'''"Which reminds me, about your PX bill..."''' 
If you had any doubts about the samurai/ninjette subplot being for laughs, this page should convince you.

==Page 164==
'''"Puncutron"''' 
An imaginary therapeutic device whose name suggests an infernal combination of eastern medicine (acupuncture) and high-energy western technology (cyclotron). There's a bit of "punk" in there, too.

'''"Detractors included...managed to keep."''' 
A silly sentence, written in painful mock-German syntax for no discernible reason.

'''"Taiwanese Healthy Brain Aerobics"''' 
More foolishness, this time mixed with music. The selection of tapes for Puncutron listening includes The All-Regimental Bagpipes play Prime Time Favorites (the Tube again!), and perhaps Pynchon's best judgmental title: The Chipmunks Sing Marvin Hamlisch.

==Page 166==
'''Jaime Sommers''' 
Jaime Sommers is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bionic_Woman Bionic Woman].

'''Eve and her sister, Lilith''' 
According to an ancient legend, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith Lilith] was not Eve's sister but was Adam's first wife. But Lilith haunts many different fables, traditions, stories in many different cultures.

Lilith is the eponym for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_Fair Lilith Fair], a music festival (1997-1999) of only female artists.

Rochelle is using "sister" in the feminist sense, as in "Sisters are doing it for themselves".

This is also interesting in the context that this is one of the only stories the reader gets in regard to what secrets/stories/philosophies are possibly taught at the Kunoichi Retreat. What seems clear is that over the years, they are more interested in making money than spiritually healing folks, so this is a nice tidbit, probably used to hook women into this Ninjette Retreat, and facilitate a mainline into their pocketbooks. Here used in a comical, and opposite way, re: Takeshi/DL.

Actually, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunoichi Kunoichi] Retreat is a parody of the many Zen retreats in Northern California, such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gulch_Farm Green Gulch Farm]. People pay to stay there and do manual farming labor to chill-out. In Pynchon's parody, the retreat is feminist and faintly BDSM. As Pynchon points out on page 107, they had to seek "cash flow" in order to avoid the financial fate of their predecessors, but there's no indication that they've given up their principles (whatever they are) entirely. See also [[Chapter_8#Page 107|page 107]].

'''"...men convinced us that we were the natural administrators of this thing 'morality'..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's feminist Eden parable suggests an interesting modern scenario: Frenesi = Eve, DL = Lilith, Vond = Serpent. This would help explain Frenesi/America's irresistible attraction for the authoritarian Vond.

'''Oscar Goldman''' 
Oscar Goldman is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bionic_Woman Bionic Woman]'s boss.

==Page 167==
'''"The Ordeal of the Thousand Broadway Show Tunes"''' 
Transcendental malarkey.

'''"YOUR MAMA EATS, how can we resist?"''' 
Aggro dining.

==Page 169==
'''"Cheapsat"''' 
Preterite communications personified.

==Page 170==
'''"Like Death, Only Different."''' 
While this is a nice definition of the "oid" suffix, it begs the question of exactly what Thanatoid's are.

'''"But we watch a lot of Tube"''' 
Thanatoids watch lots of TV, trying to advance further into the condition of death. This makes them Reaganite kids? Couch potatoes? Embittered hippies? Everyone in America? Anyway, advancing further into the condition of death is only a restatement of the law of entropy, which may mean that everyone in the universe is a Thanatoid.

People watching television in a darkened room look dead. They are immobile, and their faces have a blue tinge from the light of the TV screen.

At first Pynchon makes it sound like a lifestyle, similar to Goths. The name of a public Goth dance party in Berkeley was "Not Dead Yet". But gradually he makes himself clearer...

==Page 171==
'''"checking the edges of the frame."''' 
Does this mean Takeshi's in a film? Or is Pynchon just grabbing a handy cinema term?

The latter.

'''"go the opposite way! Back to life!"''' 
This anti-entropic movement makes Takeshi a great hero, a symbol of intelligence (the only truly anti-entropic entity), the life force. Cf. [[Chapter_9#Page_148|page 148]]

==Page 172==
'''"Shade"''' 
(as in Shade Creek) = ghost.

One can become invisible in the shadows.

'''"thick fluids in flexible containers"''' 
i.e., scumbags

'''"The Woodbine Motel"''' 
Harks back, perchance, to the 1870's, the Union Pacific railroad scandal, and the Credit Mobilier. When one party was asked, under oath, where the money was, he replied that it had "gone where the woodbine twineth."

Pynchon, just as Fisk in the above quote, is most likely referring to the song [http://www.musicofyesterday.com/sheetmusic/G/Gone_Where_The_Woodbine_Twineth.php ''Gone Where the Woodbine Twineth''], an elegy for dead Civil War soldiers. It was written by Apsley Street, a pseudonym of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsley_Street Septimus Winner], a 19th Century songwriter who was arrested for treason. Also, let's not forget the scary episode of ''The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'' called [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394103/ ''Where the Woodbine Twineth''].

'''"The Zero Inn"''' 
Very thanatoid, preterite and Zoyd-like. Also another zero.

==Page 173==
'''Thanatoids are "victims of karmic imbalances unanswered blows, unredeemed suffering..."''' 
So are the Thanatoids victims of the Seventies? Or another version of the preterites in Gravity's Rainbow? Maybe they're just over-determined ghosts of some sort. This description is similar to the kind of thing that psychics talk about when they're trying to make your poltergeists go away; it's the unresolved baggage that keeps the ghosties on the move, and out of wherever they belong. Remember, too, that Shade Creek is "a psychic jumping-off town" where the Thanatoids wait "for the data necessary to pursue their needs and aims (i.e., ghostlike revenge) among the still living..." ([[#Page 171|p. 171]])

'''"... they're ghosts."''' 
Here Pynchon flat-out tells you what the Thanatoids are.

'''"Although the streets were irregular and steeply pitched..."''' 
The description is an attempt to capture the effect of an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher M.C. Escher] drawing or perhaps the Expressionist sets in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''] [1920].

==Page 174==
'''Thanatoids are injured by "what was done to them."''' 
Here they seem like left-over hippies, Vietnam vets, America's victims. Preterites who want revenge.

'''"The amount of memory on a chip doubles every year and a half!"''' 
Sounds like a variant on Moore's Law, that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

'''"In traditional karmic adjustment ..."''' 
The Thanatoids are a combination of Christian purgatory (where souls wait before proceeding to heaven), and European folkloric poltergeists (which haunt a particular location where they have been wronged, until they see that their injury is avenged). Takeshi offers these Western ghosts the Eastern idea of karma, roughly, supernatural justice over multiple reincarnations. But this is America, so Takeshi's hustle is to offer Modern Karmic Adjustment, which speeds-up the process by avoiding the cycles of birth-death-reincarnation. If this fails, there's always the reincarnation route.

Since this is all a parody of California Zen and the Human Potential Movement, the question is do the Thanatoids actually need to be avenged, or only to feel avenged, i.e. to be at peace, in order to advance to the next level of Death? Does watching television dramas where revenge is achieved and justice triumphs dissipate their righteous anger, lead to inaction, and further their advance into Death?

==Page 175==
'''"Karmic adjustment"''' 
Well, yes, it's a nice progression from insurance adjustment, but what does Takeshi actually do? Prairie is still wondering on page 192, and DL never lets on. In any case, it looks like these Thanatoids are dead California yuppies; a resource to be exploited by preterite tradesmen.

'''"interesting work with airplanes"''' 
So, during World War II Takeshi was a kamikaze hence the same Takeshi who's in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']! (See Viking edition, [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700 page 690]) This brings up an interesting, though peripheral issue: As a Kamikaze, Takeshi flew a Zero. A-and there's a reference on [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_663-673 page 672] (of ''GR'') to "Zeros bearing comrades away," reminding us of those human lives as binary code in God's PC. As noted, there are lots of other "zero" reverences (that's a pun, not a typo) in ''Vineland''.

==Page 176==
'''"Domo komarimashita!"''' 
Japanese for "Thanks a lot!" or "You're welcome."

==Page 178==
'''"Interpersonal Programming and the Problem Towee"''' 
Pynchon definitely has an attitude on this kind of California stuff. He also seems to have a grudge against Mercedes drivers.

'''"Sounds like the team I bet on last week."''' 
Vato gets to make the bad pun this time. This is a great montage of the growing relationship between Vato, Blood, Takeshi, and DL.

==Page 179==
'''"Vato wanted it to be a sitcom."''' 
Another example of how deeply TV has invaded our thoughts.

==Page 180==
'''"I'm Chip! I'm Dale!"''' 
A sly comparison of chipmunks: Disney's cartoonic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_%27n_Dale Chip 'n Dale] v. Bagdasarian's sonic Alvin, Simon, and Theodore ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chipmunks "Alvin and the Chipmunks"]).

==Page 181==
'''"a cement lounge deep within the Long Binh complex"''' 
So Vato and Blood either worked at, or were incarcerated in, the Long Binh military prison. Cf. [[Chapter_6#Page_87|page 87]].

==Page 185==

'''"less light on it than the space I'm in"''' 

Here Vato and Blood are having an "argument about light" - see p. 201

Also, it's a paranoid flashback from past combat in Vietnam.

==Page 186==
'''"octogenarihexation"''' 
86'd = thrown out, usually in reference to a drinking establishment. Is it a coincidence that this occurs on page 186? [[Chapter_15#Page_342|See also 43'd, p.342...]]

'''"Yuroks"''' 
The native American Yurok tribe lives along the lower 36 miles of the Klamath River, and along the California coast from Wilson Creek to Trinidad Bay. This may provide a clue to the location of Vineland County. Being Indians, the Yuroks are, naturally, preterite in the Pynchon universe. The woge (note lower case) seem to be Yurok thanatoids, therefore ultra-preterite.

==Page 187==
'''"Bernard Herrmann"''' 
The famous film composer, whose credits include, among many other great picture soundtracks, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock's] classics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_%281960_film%29 ''Psycho''] [1960] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 ''Vertigo''] [1958].

Listen to Bernard Herrmann's music from ''Psycho'' on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDtJUSYoLDE&feature=related YouTube].

'''"A Toyota in the treetops"''' 
Is this a tip of the hat to the boat in the tree in Marquez's famous novel of magic realism, ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''?

As surreal as it may seem, in California cars frequently drive off of mountain roads and fall into canyons. They are pulled out using teams of tow trucks. But they usually crush the trees beneath.

'''"...vanish unaccountably between Shade Creek and the V & B pound, as Thanatoid units...had been known to do..."''' 
Vanishing Thanatoid cars may push the envelope of fantasy a bit too far. And yet, and yet... They wind up in the tops of trees, you see. It's kind of like 'toon cars: 'toons can drive real cars, real people can drive 'toon cars. Plus, it sets up (much later) the disappearance of Vond's ride in Chapter 15.

==Page 188==
'''Sate..."''' 
A totally abrupt scene-change to Takeshi's, a literary jump cut.

'''"Weed Atman"''' 
Another great name. Weed = marijuana. And [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weed,_California Weed] is a city in Northern California. Also perhaps, an echo of Steven Weed, abandoned boyfriend of heiress Patty Hearst, which raises a very faint reverberation of Frenesi as Patty-in-reverse. Atman = Hindu for breath, the principle of life, the World Soul.

Cf [[Chapter_11#Page_206| page 206]] for more on Weed's name.

'''"Prairie was hearing this, in her turn, from DL..."''' 
Prairie breaks into the narrative, bouncing us unexpectedly back to the present. These abrupt break-ins by Prairie are fun.

==Page 189==
'''"Variety Loaves...not, as once supposed, safely dead but no, only, queerly, sleeping..."''' 
Thanatoid lunch meat!

==Page 190==
'''"Me gotta go"''' 
A line from Richard Berry's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie "Louie Louie"], made famous by the Kingsmen.

==Page 191==
'''"FFAR"''' 
Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket Launcher, a rather nasty device attached to Apache helicopters around about the time Pynchon was writing Vineland.

'''"Kick Out the Jambs"''' 
Definitely a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_5 the MC 5] tune "Kick Out the Jams." But is "jambs" a typo or a pun?

Definitely a pun, and a genius one. Thoughts of ninjas, or FBI, or whoever, kicking doors in. Also, apt that the MC5 were affiliated with the far left, anti-establishment, counterculture, etc.

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 8

2011-06-16T21:18:48Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 107==
'''"a sort of Esalen Institute for lady asskickers [...] the Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunoichi Kunoichi] are female ninjas, and serious asskickers:

:Real-life ''kunoichi'' were trained differently than male ''ninja''. Their training focused more on disguise, poisons, and using their gender to an advantage. While they were trained in close combat, they were only to make use of this knowledge when they were caught. They would usually disguise themselves as geisha, prostitutes, entertainers, fortunetellers, and the like to get very close to the enemy. Generally, they would seduce the soon-to-be victim and when they get close enough, they would poison them.

:Kunoichi would hide weapons in their disguise, like poisoned needles in their hair and dirks up their sleeves. They also often would turn a previously harmless item into a weapon. For example, they would learn how to break bones with their wooden shoes, put a hidden blade on their fan, or they would use an umbrella as a momentary shield.

:Their favored weapon was the ''neko-te''. ''Neko-te'' are iron fingernails that would be fastened to the hand by leather straps. They were usually dipped in poison, and the favorite place to slice were the eyes.

Also, a nice satire on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen Esalen]-type self-realization outfits. The acronym, SKA, is perhaps a nod to Jamaican pre-reggae pop music from the early 60s, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Buster Prince Buster], and [http://www.skatalites.com/ the Ska-talites].

'''"pepinares"''' 
cucumbers. See also the [[Chapter 1#Page 3|Cucumber Lounge]]. Why so many cucumbers? Phallic?

==Page 109==
'''"Can you cook?"''' 
The Head Ninjette's first words to Prairie are not sexist, but a desperate plea made in hope of repairing the sisterhood's food karma, which is badly out of balance. Prairie actually does the job, largely via corny, middle-American preterite classics like spinach casserole and bologna glazed with grape jelly!

==Page 111==
'''"Cream of mushroom soup"''' [[Image:UBI.jpg|thumb|Andy Warhol Print (1968)|right]] 
Universal Binding Ingredient. Great gag, maybe even a true insight (Campbell's cream of mushroom soup being the central, and not-so-secret, ingredient of the ubiquitous, and often despised, "family dish" tuna noodle casserole). All stated in Pynchonian mock-technoese.

UBI is Pynchon's hat-tip to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick Philip K. Dick], an American science fiction writer and author of the novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik UBIK]. UBIK is the name of successively different household products, each advertised to solve a different everyday problem and used by the protagonist to stop the deterioration of the universe. Eventually it is revealed that the protagonist is in suspended animation and the products are being sent from the real world to help him. The final chapter takes place in the real world. On the final page a character in the real world discovers a UBIK-style coin from the author (i.e. God). This type of double-twist is typical of Dick.

'''"memorizing the shadows"''' 
Nice touch. Making use of the shadows is a ninja specialty -- supposedly, simulates invisibility to the rest of the world.

==Page 112==
'''"gaga little twits...lookin' for spiritual powers on the cheap. Thinking we'll take 'em through the spiritual car wash, soap away all that road dirt ... everybody hangin' around the Orange Julius next door go 'Wow!'..."''' 
Terrific, angry description/destruction of get-wise-quick spiritual scams.

==Page 113==
'''"casseroles beginning to redline"''' 
A clever application of racing slang (redline = engine about to blow up from revving too fast) to cooking (casserole about to burn).

==Page 114==
[[Image:sfnewsreel.jpg|thumb|From ''Black Panther / San Francisco State On Strike'' by sf newsreel]]
'''"24fps"''' 
fps = frames per second. Motion picture film is projected at 24 frames per second. The radical filmmaking group seems to be based on a real "revolutionary film collective," sf newsreel -- right down to the lower case letters. It's also a subtle echo of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Godard Jean-Luc Godard's] famous dictum that "Cinema is truth 24 times a second."

:Not sure about "sf newsreel" (all lowercase). There is [http://www.newsreel.us/ Newsreel] ("Off the Pigs" and other films about the Black Panther Party), founded in 1967 in New York, and it's affiliated collective [[http://www.newsreel.org/ California Newsreel], founded in 1968. Newsreel states:

::In the 67 the FBI started the Counter-intelligence program to try to destroy African Americans, especially the Black Panther Party and the New Left. We worked with Third World groups. We produced various films that these groups could use to tell their stories and to use in organizing in their own communities and workplaces, hopefully serving as catalysis for social change. [http://www.newsreel.us/life.htm]

:Nope, sf newsreel once existed. [http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0080 Here] is a link to get two of their films. Although they're in California Newsreel's collection, notice that the films were produced by sf newsreel. The girl in the photo is Angela Davis.

'''"peripheral whiteness...of her mother's ghost..."''' 
Lovely writing. The ensuing discussions of computer ghostliness may or may not have a bearing on the "what is a Thanatoid" question. In addition, consider Pynchon's previous connections with whiteness ([[See Chapter 4#Page 37|note for page 37]]).

==Page 115==
'''"...a sound chip playing the hook from the Everly's..."''' 
The computer notices that Prairie is drifting, and plays the riff from the 50s-60s act, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everly_Brothers Everly Brothers'] "Wake Up Little Susie." Cool! Where can we buy this utility?

Listen to "Wake Up Little Susie" on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbLuWciXFcM YouTube].

'''Computer says, "Why good night yourself..."''' 
This sudden, right-angle turn into whimsy is a rare false note. In a way it's a relief to know that Pynchon, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_%28film%29 ''Lawrence of Arabia''] [1962] "isn't perfect."

'''"Back down in the computer library, in storage, quiescent ones and zeros scattered among millions of others, the two women...continued on their way across the low-lit campus, persisting, recoverable..."''' 
This gorgeous bit of writing provides a sensational transition between Prairie's computer research and the continuation of the flashback. It also leads into one of the flashiest sequences in the book (i.e., one with particularly flashy writing) and continues the binary metaphor initiated two chapters previous.

Pynchon here introduces the idea of time recoverably trapped in a photograph (a major theme in ''Against the Day''). The recovery is first done via Prairie's imagination (echoing her father's imaginings). Then it is continued "in some definable space" via authorial assertion.

'''"double-cross whites"''' 
amphetamine tabs marked by a cross.

==Page 116==
'''"Tetas y Chetas"''' 
Probably something like "tits and ass" in Chicano slang.

'''"ECO stock"''' 
Ektachrome Commercial, a very slow (32 ASA), very fine grain 16mm film stock that was bread and butter for educational and industrial filmmakers. Experimental filmmakers liked it too; it was easy to derange, producing weird images. No longer available.

'''"...she could still begin to smell them, the aftershave, the gunmetal in the sun..."''' 
Street-scene and riot are precisely drawn. These details don't come from a Baedecker. One can't help thinking that Pynchon must have been there. This sequence is beautifully written, and highly sensual thanks to Pynchon's employment of a profusion of smells (including, as the capper, on [[Chapter 8#Page 118|p. 118]], the smell of DL's "pussy excitation.")

'''"the basic stone bowelflash..."''' 
Another example of the anal fear reactions Pynchon seems big on in this work. See also pages [[Chapter 1#Page 10|10]], [[Chapter 4#Page 45|45]], [[Chapter 11#Page 207|207]], [[Chapter 14#Page 299|299]].

'''"Che Zed"''' 
DL's Czech CZ motorcycle.

==Page 117==
'''"drops of separating ketchup and fat..."''' 
Self-satire? We suspect it might be, as indicated by the concluding em-dash as Pynchon restrains himself and makes a conscious (and public) decision to end his detailed description of the flying drops and continue the narrative. ("Sorry, folks!")

In both the original 1990 first edition hardcover (Little, Brown) and in the 2000 Vintage edition there is no "Sorry, folks!", just [dash]"It's the Revolution, girl - can't you feel it?"

==Page 118==
'''"world-class burgers, jukebox solidarity..."''' 
Cool!

==Page 120==
'''"so it couldn't've been Kansas anymore."''' 
This reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (in which Dorothy says, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto,") is especially clever given DL's not-so-distant departure from Leavenworth, Kansas. Pynchon used this currently fashionable phrase in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''], as well.

==Page 121==
'''"...cutting Moody's orders for Japan..."''' 
This Japanese episode includes a number of gentle take-offs on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_gibson William Gibson], the cyberpunk novelist who borrowed a lot of his schtick from Pynchon. Gibson often writes about Japanese punks and small-time underworld types.

==Page 122==
'''"spheriphagous tulips"''' [[Image:Pachinko.jpg|thumb|1970's Pachinko Machine|right]] 
ball-catchers in a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko pachinko game]. Spheriphagous = sphere-eating.

'''"You eat soba?"''' 
soba = Japanese noodles. Noburu's first words to DL really mean, "Can you handle some Japanese identity?"

'''"You buyin'?"''' 
DL's reply is impeccably cool.

'''"Shodan potential"''' 
''Shodan'' = a high degree, or black belt, in the martial arts.

'''"Inoshiro Sensei"''' 
DL's martial arts teacher. Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishiro_Honda Ishiro Honda] (1911-1993), the director of ''Godzilla'', ''Rodan'', ''Mothra'', et al.

'''"assukikaa"''' 
Jive Japlish (like Faque French) for "ass kicker."

==Page 123==
'''"water-trade"''' 
In Japanese, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizu_shōbai Mizu shōbai] or the water-trade is a euphemism for the night-time live entertainment industry, often sex-oriented.

'''"like vacationing on another planet and losing her traveler's checks."''' 
This description of DL's puberty and adolescence is fine writing, and a telling insight.

'''"the modernized crash course"''' 
Sensei offers DL the cyberpunk version of the full martial arts program the technique without the spirituality.

==Page 124==
'''"on through suppertime, primetime..."''' 
In the authoritarian world ("the truancy squad was now in her face") TV shapes even the rhythms of the day.

'''"a personalized coffee mug wired permanently to his right index finger"''' 
A precisely captured image of a Navy lifer, retired in place. Pynchon must have seen many of these in his short experience in the service.

==Page 126==
'''"''kobun''"''' 
Yakuza retainer; button man; bodyguard.

'''"one more view of Edo."''' 
Sounds like a line from a famous ''haiku'', or the title of a painting. Edo is, of course, the old name for Tokyo. Likely a reference to Japanese printmaker [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige's] [http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/100_views_edo/100_views_edo.htm "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo"] (1855-1858).

'''"Yamaguchi-gumi"''' 
one of the major [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza ''Yakuza''] (Japanese organized crime) families.

'''"Relax! Only testing you!"''' 
Here Inoshiro Sensei becomes a cross between Toshiro Mifune and Mr. Natural.

'''"giri"''' 
obligation. Very important in Japanese (and particularly [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza ''Yakuza'']) culture; note that Takeshi's musical cards are called "giri-chits."

==Page 127==
'''"original purity...subverted...once eternal techniques now only one-shot and disposable..."'''

'''"This is for all the rest of us down here with the insects, the ones who don't quite get to make warrior, who...fail to get it right...this is our equalizer, our edge...because we have ancestors and descendants too..."'''

A moving restatement of Pynchon's concern for the preterites, as well as an excellent discourse on the difference between a samurai (the eternal purity of the warrior) and Inoshiro's version of ''ninjitsu'' (the one-shot pragmatism of the assassin, martial arts without Zen).

'''"The Nosepicking of Death"''' 
Funny list of martial moves. ''Gojira no Chimpira'' = The Gangster of Godzilla.

==Page 128==
'''"...better just hand [your body] over to those who are qualified, doctors, and lab technicians and by extension coaches, employers, boys with hardons, so forth..."''' 
Pynchon's attitude towards authority is pretty well spelled out in DL's feminist monologue on schoolrooms.

'''"She and Prairie were out taking a break..."''' 
Fabulously smooth cross-fade out of flashbacks back to DL and Prairie talking at SKA.
{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 6

2011-06-16T21:11:57Z

Effwit: checked a previously cited typo in first ed. hardcover, and found another on page 87

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 68==
'''"a pale humid Sun Belt city whose almost-familiar name would soon enough be denied to civilian eyes by federal marker pens"''' 
That is, censored in Frenesi's Freedom-of-Information file. This marker-pen image recurs later, too. One gets the feeling that Pynchon has, at one time or another, worked with such files -- or looked at his own.

==Page 70==
'''"once you get that specialist's code..."''' 
Frenesi has the specialist's code for sexual betrayal. Cold.

==Page 71==
'''"a zombie at her back"''' 
Frenesi's past. Embodied, we shall see later, by the Thanatoid Weed.

'''"full-auto qualified"''' 
More military usage. Technically, this means qualified in automatic-fire weaponry, but the meaning here seems more like: empowered, into her own.

'''"When the sixties were over...a world based on the one and zero of life and death..."''' 
A moving section, extremely fine writing, and the first appearance of Pynchon's powerful binary metaphor -- which rolls on to the end of the chapter, and indeed, throughout the book. Actually, it first appeared near the end of [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']: "For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeros and ones twinned above.... Ones and Zeros. So did the couples arrange themselves...[for example,] either an accommodation reached...with the Angel of Death, or only death and the daily, tedious preparations for it. Another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none."

==Page 74==
'''gaffer''' 
The movie electrician who sets up the stage lights for filming; probably a member of IBEW (IATSE local 40),

==Page 75==
'''"all over the jukeboxes..."''' 
Pynchon makes a rare departure from his usual devil-may-care style to explain one of his weird names. Frenesi's parents named her after the popular [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Shaw Artie Shaw] swing tune. Cf [[Chapter_3#Page_27|page 27]].

'''"Her father, Jess Traverse, trying to organize loggers in Vineland..."''' 
Frenesi, and thus Prairie, are descendants of the Traverse clan, the arguably central protagonists of Pynchon's "Against the Day". For more detail see the Traverse entry in the "Against the Day" wiki.
On the following page Pynchon relays the meeting of Jess and Eula Becker, Sasha's mother. However on p.1076 of AtD the adolescent Jess brings home a homework assignment from a Mr. Becker, an essay on "What It Means To Be An American." "It means do what they tell you and take what they give you and don't go on strike or their soldiers will shoot you down." It came back with a big A+ on it. "Mr. Becker was at the Cour d'Alene back in the olden days.
Guess I forgot to mention that."
AtD leaves the Traverse clan in what is implied to be northwestern Washington state.

'''"Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
An appropriate name for a logging goon, since a scantling is, among other things, a small wooden beam, or a small timber. As Pynchon tells the tale, Scantling was hired by "big timber" (the Employers Association), to help eradicate the "timber beast" (the IWW). Scantling's first name may be a reference to Charles Crocker, a 19th Century California tycoon who made a fortune building the Union Pacific Railroad.

'''"the Employer's Association"''' 
of the State of Washington was the anti-wobbly arm of the Lumber Trust. In April, 1918, its hired thugs raided the IWW headquarters in Centralia, Washington -- leading, inevitably, to yet another massacre in Centralia during the Armistice Day parade, November 11, 1919.

'''"...a local attorney for the damned, sure no George Vandeveer..."''' 
George F. Vanderveer (either Pynchon, his editor, or his typesetter has misspelled the name) was a prominent Seattle attorney in the 'teens, popularly known as "counsel for the damned." In 1917 Vanderveer successfully defended IWW members in the legal free-for-all following a series of violent confrontations in Washington state in which Wobblies were slugged, kidnapped, shot, hanged, tarred and feathered, driven out of town -- and, when all else failed, jailed and charged with treason for endangering the war effort.

Subsequently Vanderveer became chief counsel for the IWW, and in 1918 headed the defense of 101 Wobblies against bogus charges of sabotage, and conspiracy to obstruct the war. The trial lasted five months; it was the longest criminal trial ever held in the United States to that date. Despite Vanderveer's best efforts, all 101 defendants were found guilty, and given long sentences by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (later the first Commissioner of Baseball). This was the beginning of the end for the IWW, although it lingered long enough to contribute to the events described in this chapter, and remained technically active well into the sixties.

==Page 76==
'''"Wobblies, sneered at by property owners..."''' 
Wobblies = members of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobblies IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World]. And definitely preterite.

'''"bindlestiff life"''' 
Hobolike. Bindle = bundle, usually a hobo's clothes and stuff, rolled up in bedroll. Hence, "Bindlestiff" = hobo, a stiff with a bindle, but sometimes a thief who will stiff you of your bindle. Note: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B#bindlestiffs Bindlestiffs of the Blue in ''Against the Day'']

'''"One Big Union"''' 
Often confused with the IWW, this was actually an earlier labor movement that led to the formation of the IWW. First seen around the turn of the century, it was supposed to be organized along industrial, rather than trade lines. The Lumber Trust, which controlled the authorities in the area, called this movement "The Timber Beast," and did its best to eradicate it. Nonetheless, in the early 'teens it took hold among Northwest loggers, most of whom eventually joined the IWW.

'''"Joe Hill"''' 
(1882 - 1915) was a Swedish emigrant who arrived in the US in 1901, and fought in the Mexican revolution before becoming an IWW organizer in California in 1912. A songwriter as well as a soldier of fortune, he is credited as the author of many labor union songs, including Casey Jones (The Union Scab), The Preacher and the Slave, Rebel Girl, Pie In the Sky When You Die, and many others. In 1915, Hill was framed on a murder charge, and executed by firing squad, in Utah. Whether in spite of, or because of, his murder, he went on to become a legendary labor hero, inspiring countless thousands of working men and women. Hill's life fully justifies his legend.

'''"piss on through"''' 
As opposed to "pass on through." Nice bit of local/period usage -- unless it's a typo.

'''"the City"''' 
There's only one: San Francisco. Pynchon's flawless idiomatic usage reveals him to have spent at least some time in the Bay Area.

==Page 77==
'''"a rip-roaring union town..."''' 
Excellent details of pre-war labor history in San Francisco.

'''"the General strike of '34"''' 
The surprisingly successful San Francisco General Strike of July, 1934, was initiated by Harry Bridges' Longshoremen's Union, along with a number of other unionized maritime workers. Jack London wrote about it in his story, "South O' the Slot." Although the authorities eventually succeeded in putting it down, some of the strikers' demands were actually met. As a result, "strike fever" spread throughout the US, especially in the coal mining, and textile industries, and among agricultural workers. Pynchon lists some of the west coast agricultural strikes.

'''"standing midwatch guard"''' 
Midwatch is a Naval term, probably an abbreviation of "midnight watch" since the midwatch (also known as the "balls to four") is the stint between midnight and 4 AM. It's followed by the dogwatch (4 AM to 8 AM).

'''"Tom Mooney"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mooney Thomas J. Mooney] was a famous jailed radical, for whom thousands of picket signs ("Free Tom Mooney") were carried by thousands of lefties during the twenties and thirties. In 1915, Mooney was the foremost labor radical in San Francisco. He was solidly against the United Railroads of San Francisco, which in turn put its money behind Charles M. Fickert, a leader of the "crush the unions" drive. On July 22, 1916, Fickert framed Mooney by staging a homicidal dynamite blast on Market Street. Ten people were killed; Mooney (and Warren K. Billings) were held in prison until 1939, when they were pardoned by California Governor Culbert L. Olson.

'''"Campaign for Culber Olson in '38"''' 
Another typo/misspelling. This must be the lawyer, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culbert_L._Olson Culbert L. Olson], who eventually freed Tom Mooney.

First edition hardcover has correct spelling, typo introduced in subsequent printings.

==Page 78==
'''"Oh, the joints were jumping those nights..."''' 
Pynchon does a great job of capturing the wartime atmosphere in San Francisco, with a cute ref to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

'''"Wild and rowdy like the Clark Gable movie."''' 
That's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%28film%29 ''San Francisco''] [1936].

'''Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots''' 
Some readers believe that Pynchon’s creation of Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots is a reference to Earl Mac Rauch’s 1984 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension''] (which itself contains references to [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']) — and in which Buckaroo Banzai plays in a band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Your call.

:There is also the famous Enrico's Sidewalk Cafe in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood adjacent to Chinatown home of the beats. Around since 1959, it garnered a cameo as a boho rendezvous spot in the 1968 San Francisco film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullitt ''Bullitt''] starring Steve McQueen.

'''"Ramón Raquello...with the news from Mars"''' 
Fictional bandleader and fictional event, both created by Orson Welles’ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Theatre Mercury Theatre troupe] for the famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_%28radio%29 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast] on 30 Oct 1938.

==Page 79==
'''"Chinese references in those days [were] code for opium products"''' 
A fascinating (and typically Pynchonian) inside "period" tip.

'''"ork"''' 
Pynchon uses this obscure bit of (presumably) forties slang, meaning orchestra, at least twice in Vineland. We've never run across it in any of our period reading or listening. However, in Kovacsland, a biography of Ernie Kovacs, author Diana Rico makes reference to Kovacs' habit of "creating a special language" in a column he wrote, briefly, for a newspaper called the Trentonian. ["Special language" = "idiolalia." See note on p. 263. A paranoid would connect these, but we'll pass.] To illustrate her point, she notes Kovacs' habitual use of the word "orks," meaning orchestras. Now Kovacs was writing in 1946, so there are two intriguing possibilities: 1) Rico is wrong; Kovacs didn't make up the term, he picked it up from hearing it used, thereby verifying Pynchon's correct use of it. Or, 2), Kovacs did invent the term, and Pynchon picked it up from reading one of Kovacs' columns.

Diana Rico is incorrect. The use of "ork" for orchestra was authentic 1940's slang, even prior to 1946. For example, see the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Keller#Stan_Keller_and_His_Orchestra Ork of Stork] or the 1948 Billboard reviews of [http://www.miriamlavelle.com/Billboard_Entries.htm Miriam LaVelle].

'''"telegraphing the chord changes"''' 
Only musicians think about these details; another hint of Pynchon's musical predilections.

'''"gave her the O-O"''' 
O-O = the once-over. But the way it looks on the page also suggests "the big eye," or in this case, two of 'em.

==Page 80==
'''"long-hull Sumner-class destroyer"''' 
More Navy stuff, unlikely to be found in newspaper archives.

'''"Friends of Hub's had sold out friends of Sasha's..."''' 
Extremely accurate rendition of left-wing bitterness, with nice joke ("nobody talks") to cap it.

==Page 82==
'''"You want to see a hot set?....see that? Shook all over? That's scab carpentry..."''' 
Presumably the paint on the scab construction hadn't dried yet either. This is great, authentic-sounding slang.
[[Image:IATSElogo.png|thumb|IATSE Logo|right]]
'''"You want to see a hot set...some scab local the IA set up..."''' 
IA is short for IATSE – the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Originally a theatrical union for stagehands and set decorators, it expanded into Hollywood and the up-and-coming motion picture industry in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, the union was taken over by the Chicago crime syndicate headed by Frank Nitti — Al Capone’s successor. Throughout the '30s and '40s (and, some say, even today) IA was a so-called "sweetheart" union—meaning that it existed primarily to protect the studios from labor unrest. During those years IA paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to the mob. During the CSU strikes of 1945-1947 (see note, p. 289) "company" unions were formed by IA leaders for the express purpose of breaking the strikes. "Hot" was a term the far more radical CSU (Conference of Studio Unions) used to refer to sleazy sets constructed by these "scab" IA unions.

'''"loud birds...were attracted..."''' 
Not even birds can resist TV; it charms them out of the trees.

==Page 83==
'''"Believing that the rays coming out of the TV screen would act as a broom to sweep the room clear of all spirits, Frenesi now popped the Tube on and checked the listings."''' 
So we learn two more notable Tube Facts: TV has supernatural powers; and it sweeps out good, as well as bad spirits.

'''"Let the grim feminist rave..."''' 
Frenesi's fetish for men-in-uniform manifests itself in masturbatory fantasies featuring Ponch and Jon from CHiPs. This scene marks the return from Frenesi's flashback to her parent's history and her childhood.

'''"Sasha believed her daughter had 'gotten' this uniform fetish from her...a helpless turn toward images of authority..."''' 
Authority = God = election to Calvinist salvation. Pynchon's attitude towards authority in this context is pretty well spelled out in DL's angry-ironic monologue on schoolrooms (p.128): "...better just hand [your body] over to those who are qualified, doctors, and lab technicians and by extension coaches, employers, boys with hardons, so forth..."

==Page 85==
'''"a lot of people we know -- they ain't on the computer anymore. Just -- gone."''' 
Paranoia strikes deep, except this time it isn't just paranoia. This echoes the passengers vanishing from the Kahuna Airlines plane in Chapter 5, and foreshadows the "handful of persons unaccounted for" (p. 248) after Trasero County events to be revealed presently. It seems that Vond (or certain "unrelenting forces" that may, or may not, be connected with Vond) have been "disappearing" people for some time.

==Page 87==
[[Image:LongBinhJail.jpg|thumb|Long Binh Jail (LBJ)|right]]
'''Long Bihn Jail''' 
Long Bihn was the principal US military prison in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Located in Saigon, and best known as "The LBJ" by the troops, it housed US military personnel who had crossed to the dark side.

This is a typo, should be "Long Binh." Was wrong on this page in first edition hardcover, spelled correctly however on page 181.

'''"...a kind of alien-invasion game in which Flash launched complaints of different sizes at different speeds and Frenesi tried to deflect or neutralize them..."''' 
A marital argument is described with a Space Invaders simile. Very telling, very clever.

==Page 90==
'''"Jasonic"''' 
From Jason, the main character in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_%28film%29 ''Friday the 13th''] [1980].

'''"alphanumeric"''' 
letters and numbers, like a typewriter keyboard.

'''"It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character..."''' 
Computer reference: eight bits, each of which can be either a one or a zero, make one byte (or alphanumeric character).

'''"We are digits in God's computer...and the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God."''' 
The life-and-death-as-ones-and-zeros conceit is concluded. A beautiful, elegant, unbearable idea. The phrase "toil and blood" may be a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan (the same words occur in "Shelter From the Storm"), or it may simply be a reference to Winston Churchill's famous WW II speech.

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 2

2011-06-16T20:55:25Z

Effwit:

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 14==
'''"logger types, fallers, choker setters..."''' 
Faller (aka "cutters") are the elites of logging. Their work is very dangerous as they cut down the trees that are then processed by others. The faller often works shorter hours, and usually works alone. A choker setter fastens chokers devices constructed from five-to eight-foot lengths of 3/8ths diameter steel cable with a sliding bell attached around logs so they can be moved by the yarder, cat, or skidder. It's usually the initial job that a logger will obtain on a logging crew. [http://www.ccrh.org/oral/women&timber/glossary.htm]

[[image:clara-bow.jpg|thumb|100px|right|Clara Bow]]'''Pia Zadora in ''The Clara Bow Story''''' 
The first of many fictitious movies. It's easy to tell, because Pynchon always provides a bracketed date [1980] when he references a real movie, but not a fictitious one. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Zadora Pia Zadora], whose film career (eg. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_the_Martians ''Santa Claus Conquers the Martians'']) was going nowhere until she married Israeli multimillionaire Meshulam Riklis in 1977, had some success in film and music, but no longer. Not sure of the connection with the famous silent-film actress [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bow Clara Bow].

Throughout ''Vineland'' Pynchon tosses off "Actor ''X'' in Movie Biography ''Y''" jokes. Each is a horrendous miscasting. In this case the truly charismatic Clara Bow is played by the money-inflated Pia Zadora.

In Orwell's 1984, the Party continuously rewrites history by falsifying records, altering photographs, and vaporizing witnesses. In Pynchon's 1984, Hollywood continuously rewrites history by producing made-for-TV movies.

'''"Zoy-oyd..."''' 
Prairie is a wonderfully drawn 14-year-old teenager.

'''"ancient surfer baggies [...] and a dilapidated Hussong's T-shirt..."''' 
Baggies swim trunks that were about knee-length and, yes, baggy were a radical departure from the short and tight men's swimware prevalent in the 60s. They were part of the surfer uniform and were memorialized in song by the Beach Boys and other "surf" groups (The Fantastic Baggies, for one!). So Zoyd's could be over 20 years old.
[[Image:HussongShirt.jpg|thumb|Image From A Hussong's T-shirt|right]]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussong's Hussong's], established in 1890 and located in Ensenada in Baja, Mexico, is the oldest cantina in the Californias, and was and is a popular surfers hangout serving primarily beer, piña colladas and peanuts. It’s also the place where the Margarita was invented—back in October, 1941 by bartender Don Carlos Orozco. Zoyd is indeed a California Boy. And it's somewhat likely that Pynchon swung by Hussong's during one of his Mexico visits.

'''"the Tube"''' 
Consistently capitalized throughout the book.

'''"a chair-high bag of Chee-tos and a sixpack of grapefruit soda from the health-food store."''' 
This combination of junk food and health food defines the North Coast redneck hippie perfectly. But Pynchon's insistent hammering on Zoyd's junk-food habit may go a little deeper like autobiography, maybe?

'''"news anchor Skip Tromblay"''' 
The French word ''trembles'' means "to tremble or shake" and is often used in describing someone's voice. The imperfect form is ''tremblais''. Quivering with excitement?

==Page 15==
'''"almost featured on 'Good Morning America'"''' 
15 minutes of almost fame.

'''"Day-Glo orange [...] some acid green"''' 
"Day-Glo" colors are associated with the Psychedelic Sixties, as they would glow when illuminated with a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_light black light], and "black-light" effects where ubiquitous during that period. "Acid green" makes an appearance in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11 ''V''] and [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_181-189 ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

'''"the million crystal trajectories, smooth as fountain-drops"''' 
Cf. In [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Crystal_Palace ''Gravity's Rainbow'']: "He's afraid of the way the glass will fall soon it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace." (p.3)

'''"useful distinction between...defenestrative [and transfenestrative] personality"''' 
Cool Pynchonian satire of California Psychobabble. "Defenestration" is throwing something or someone out an open window; "Transfenestration" is throwing someone ''through'' a closed window, breaking the glass, natch. According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration Wikipedia], the term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year of 1618, i.e., the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague Defenestrations of Prague].

==Page 16==
'''Isaiah Two Four''' 
Zoyd is right. This verse is about turning away from war toward peace: "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

This verse is also the basis for the well known civil rights song "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" (aka, "Down by the Riverside").

'''"Love is strange"''' 
Refers to Mickey and Sylvia's ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Baker Mickey Baker] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Vanderpool's Sylvia Vanderpool]) 1957 Top-40 hit song [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_Strange "Love is Strange"]. Clearly on Pynchon's Top-40, as well; he used it as the lead for his [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cholera.html ''New York Times Book Review'' piece] on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_the_Time_of_Cholera ''Love In the Time of Cholera'']:

:Love, as Mickey and Sylvia, in their 1956 [sic it reached #11 on the Billboard charts in March 1957] hit single, remind us, love is strange. As we grow older it gets stranger, until at some point mortality has come well within the frame of our attention, and there we are, suddenly caught between terminal dates while still talking a game of eternity. It's about then that we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teen-age pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear.

The tune was allegedly written by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley Bo Diddley] although it was presented to Mickey and Sylvia as being composed by Bo's wife Ethel Smith. Apparently, Bo didn't want the credit because he was pissed off at his music publishers because they didn't pay him enough. Mickey Baker is considered by some to be the first great rock 'n' roll guitarist and, prior to the duo, he was in a rhythm and blues band with saxophonist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Curtis King Curtis] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Taylor_%28jazz%29 Sam "The Man" Taylor]. After the success of "Love is Strange," Mickey moved to Paris where he remained for twenty-five years, touring, very rarely, as a blues guitarist.

==Page 17==
'''"Joey Chitwood-type thrill show"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joie_Chitwood Joey Chitwood] (1912-1988), a legendary "Auto Daredevil," started touring with his death-defying troupe in the 1940s, and continued for decades. He was an inspiration for fellow daredevil [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel Evel Knievel] (1938-2007).

==Page 18==
'''"the Uzi machine gun, 'badass of the desert.'"'''[[Image:Uzi.jpg|thumb|Uzi Submachine Gun|right]] 
Pynchon seems moderately hung up on rear ends in this book (and elsewhere). The phrase "badass" recurs constantly (as it did in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] too, where it achieved Naval Significance as the USS John E. Badass). In addition there's Trasero County (trasero = Spanish for "rump,") Las Nalgas (Spanish for "buttocks,") and Culito Canyon (culito = Spanish for "little ass.") There's also an echo of Da Conho, the cook in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''V.''], whose fantasy involved shooting Muslims in Israel with a .30 caliber machine gun that went "yibble, yibble, yibble." ("Da Conho's machine gun was the only one in the world that went "yibble, yibble," Pynchon pointed out.)

{{Vineland PbP}}